impeach the monkey puppet!'s topics - tribe.net

Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen

2007-12-17T21:28:38Z

Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
December 14, 2007

Ohio's Secretary of State announced this morning that a $1.9 million official study shows that "critical security failures" are embedded throughout the voting systems in the state that decided the 2004 election. Those failures, she says, "could impact the integrity of elections in the Buckeye State." They have rendered Ohio's vote counts "vulnerable" to manipulation and theft by "fairly simple techniques."

Indeed, she says, "the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant."

In other words, Ohio's top election official has finally confirmed that the 2004 election could have been easily stolen.

Brunner's stunning findings apply to electronic voting machines used in 58 of Ohio's 88 counties, in addition to scanning devices and central tabulators used on paper ballots in much of the rest of the state.

Brunner is calling for widespread changes to the way Ohio casts and counts its ballots. Her announcement follows moves by California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen to disqualify electronic voting machines in the nation's biggest state.

In tandem, these two reports add a critical state-based dimension to the growing mountain of evidence that the US electoral system is rife with insecurities. Reports from the Brennan Center, the Carter-Baker Commission, the Government Accountability Office, the Conyers Committee Task Force Report, Princeton University and others have offered differing perspectives that add up to the same conclusion.

Coming in the state that decided the 2004 election for George W. Bush, Brunner's confirmation of the electoral system's vulnerabilities adds huge new weight to the charge that the Buckeye State's vote count was stolen.

In a series of investigative reports dating to well before the 2004 election, the Columbus Free Press and Freepress.org have documented several dozen different means used by the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign to steal the official 2004 vote count.

The final official tally for Bush---less than 119,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast---varied by 6.7% from exit poll results, which showed a Kerry victory. Exit polls in 2004 were designed to have a margin of error of about 1%.

In various polling stations in Democrat-rich inner city precincts in Youngstown and Columbus, voters who pushed touch screens for Kerry saw Bush's name light up. A wide range of discrepancies on both electronic and paper balloting systems leaned almost uniformly toward the Bush camp. Voting procedures regularly broke down in inner city and campus areas known to be heavily Democratic.

In direct violation of standing federal election law, 56 of Ohio's 88 counties have since destroyed all or part of their 2004 election data. The materials were additionally protected by a federal court injunction in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal civil rights lawsuit (in which we are attorney and plaintiff). To date, no state or federal prosecutions have resulted from this wholesale destruction of presidential election records, including 1.6 million ballots, cast and uncast, needed for definitive auditing procedures. However, two Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) election officials have been convicted of felony manipulation of an official recount. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, the state's largest newspaper, recently editorialized that there is "no evidence" the 2004 election was stolen, but omitted mention of the destruction of the electoral records by more than half the counties in the state. The Plain-Dealer and other mainstream media have consistently ignored findings by the Free Press and others indicating widespread manipulation and theft of the kind Brunner has now confirmed was eminently do-able within the Ohio system.

Brunner says "the results underscore the need for a fundamental change in the structure of Ohio's election system to ensure ballot and voting system security while still making voting convenient and accessible to all Ohio voters." Among other things, she advocates replacing touch-screen machines with optical-scan units that include a paper balloting system.

The study was managed by the Battelle Corporation, and conducted by Columbus-based MicroSolved Inc., SysTest Labs of Denver along with a consortium of academic subcontractors. It was reviewed by a dozen county officials, and included scrutiny of voting systems produced by Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Hart Intercivic and Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold).

Brunner is the Democratic successor to Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell, who administered the 2004 election as Secretary of State while also serving as state co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. The report comes as part of her pledge to guarantee a fair and reliable vote count in the upcoming 2008 presidential election.

Under Blackwell, Ohio spent some $100 million installing electronic voting machines as part of the Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress in the wake of the scandals surrounding the 2000 election. Former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, HAVA's principle author, now resides in a federal prison, in part for illegalities surrounding his dealings with voting machine companies.

Blackwell, who was defeated in a 2006 race for the Ohio governorship, outsourced web hosting responsibilities for the 2004 vote count to a programming firm that also programmed the web site for the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign. Blackwell's chosen host site for the state's vote count was in the basement of the Old Pioneer Bank Building in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the servers for the Republican National Committee, and the Bush White House, were also located.

Brunner has now recommended that all Ohio's voting be done on optical scan ballots, with reliance on central tabulation. Voters with disabilities could use AutoMark machines with bar coding devices that allow the marking of ballots with little or no additional assistance.

"It's a testament to our state's boards of elections officials that elections on the new (federally) mandated voting systems have gone as smoothly as they have in light of these findings," Brunner said.

Conversely, it is also a testament to the ease with which the 2004 election was stolen by election officials who had clear conflicts of interest aimed at keeping George W. Bush in the White House.

--
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008 (www.freepress.org) and of WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO? (The New Press) with Steve Rosenfeld. THE FITRAKIS FILES are available at www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared. Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2920

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 1 reply

You should push for indictments and not for impeachment

2007-11-20T00:26:10Z

You should push for indictments and not for impeachment of President Bush and administration.

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 1 reply

PROGRESS despite the "MONKEY PUPPET" ;)*~~or ASS-WIPE!

2007-09-01T23:49:42Z

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, PARKINSON’S DISEASE AND ALS AMONG DISEASES ADDRESSED IN STEM CELL PHARMA INC.’S NEW EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Las Vegas, Nv. 8/29/2007 5:34 PM GMT (FINDITT)
The following is the new Executive Summary posted on the Stem Cell Pharma, Inc. (SCPI) website.

STEM CELL PHARMA INC. (SCPI)

Stem Cell Pharma Inc. (SCPI) is a privately held bio-pharmaceutical company founded in May of 2005, with a capitalization of 10 mm shares, out of which 3.3mm are issued and outstanding.

SCPI owns the world wide rights to an Invention "An Amniotic Membrane Stem Cell Telomerase Enhanced Implant, Manufacturing And Clinical Uses" by Alfred T. Sapse MD (r) its President and Founder. This invention is a novel approach to harvest embryonic type stem cells from the amniotic membrane, a translucid sheet covering placenta. These embryonic cells can potentially repair and if needed rebuild practically all organs, tissues and cells, through a process of differentiation, once introduced in the human body.

The implant had been used with modest to substantial results in the treatment of neuro degenerative diseases such a Multiple Sclerosis (MS), ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease), Parkinson's, in eye diseases (Retinitis Pigmentosa - RP, Usher's Syndrome - RP plus deafness), Muscular Dystrophy (MDA) including Duchenne's, children diseases such as Cerebral Palsy (CP) and Epilepsy, autoimmune (Lupus Erythematosus (LE)), and especially in the treatment of symptoms of aging. Clinical studies commenced in the US are now being carried out abroad and some of the results obtained might be used in the United States in the future IND's submissions to the FDA. There were no reports about infections and rejections or any side effects after the use of the implant.

Current Activities

1.) Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) Center To Open In India. On April 12, 2007 Stem Cell Pharma Inc (SCPI) USA and King Multitech Global Pvt Limited (KMT) India, announced the signing of a Joint Venture (JV) by which a Retinitis Pigmentosa Center, a first of this type in the world will open, subject to regulatory approval in Ludhiana, Punjab, India. This center would accommodate initially 10 patients a day or up to 300 patients a month. India has a population of 400,000 patients with RP, a disease which had no treatment until now.

2.) SCPI is generating a substantial cash flow from the use of our Implant abroad.

3.) Based upon favorable results obtained in a small number of ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease) patients. SCPI is actively preparing an Investigative New Drug (IND) application to be submitted shortly to the FDA to request approval to commence clinical studies, using the SCPI Implant in the treatment of ALS. Should the FDA accept our IND application, our project may be granted Orphan Drug Status. Orphan Drug status is granted to drugs that are afflicting less than 200,000 patients (in the US there are 30,000 plus 3-4,000, being added every year). Drugs granted orphan drug status are required to go through 1-2 clinical studies only, and fast track approval, should they be found safe and effective.

4.) SCPI had signed an agreement with an US tissue bank by which amniotic membranes will be provided to SCPI for clinical studies in the US and abroad. These amniotic membranes are approved by the FDA after passing all the GMP (Good manufacturing Practices) and GTP (Good Tissue Practices) testing.

5.) Dr. Sapse will be a speaker at the NeuroDrug Conference in London, UK October 23rd - 25th, 2007, titled: "CNS disorders: What the future holds for drugs and Therapies." His presentation will be on day one Wednesday, Octobers 25th, 2007 at 10:00 am, followed by a panel session: "Key successes in stem cell therapies and where we go from here." The panelists are Dr. John Sindon - ReNeuron, Dr. Aaron Chuang - Glaxo Smith Kline, and Dr. Alfred T. Sapse - Stem Cell Pharma, Inc.

For more details on the 2007 NeuroDrug Conference go to: http://www.terrapinn.com/2007/neuro/.

StemCell Pharma Inc.
1701 East Katie Avenue #20
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Phone: (702) 383-5893
Fax: (702) 733-9505
dralfredtsapse@...
www.stemcellpharmainc.com

http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?storyid=21820&ret=news.aspx&cat=Business

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

ANOTHER reason to impeach!...THE BASTARD

2007-08-31T22:19:19Z

http://tribes.tribe.net/stemcellsgivelife

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

presidential directive at whitehouse.gov gives Bush imperial powers

2007-05-22T17:42:11Z

presidential directive at whitehouse.gov gives Bush imperial powers

Just heard about this presidential directive from their own website. This means any event that is considered a disruption of the nation or its normal routine (from the mega-quake in Cascadia to the even a computer virus) then Mr Bush can declare this emergency with 90s imperial rule. They can even take over Native American Reservations or anything else deemed important for military stragedy. Add to this this week's ruling on environmentalism as possibly ecoterrorism.

One news report with the actualy whitehouse.gov announcement:

Bush Anoints Himself as the Insurer of Constitutional Government in Emergency
By Matthew Rothschild
May 18, 2007

With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack.

In a new National Security Presidential Directive, Bush lays out his plans for dealing with a “catastrophic emergency.”Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch. And he gives himself the responsibility “for ensuring constitutional government.”

He laid this all out in a document entitled “National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51” and “Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20.”

http://progressive.org/mag_wx051807

The White House released it on May 9.

Other than a discussion on Daily Kos led off by a posting by Leo Fender, and a pro-forma notice in a couple of mainstream newspapers, this document has gone unremarked upon.

The subject of the document is entitled “National Continuity Policy.”

It defines a “catastrophic emergency” as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function.”

This could mean another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California, I imagine, since it says it would include “localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies.”

The document emphasizes the need to ensure “the continued function of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government,” it states.

But it says flat out: “The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government.”

The document waves at the need to work closely with the other two branches, saying there will be “a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government.” But this effort will be “coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial
branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers.”

Among the efforts coordinated by the President would ensuring the capability of the three branches of government to “provide for orderly succession” and “appropriate transition of leadership.”

The document designates a National Continuity Coordinator, who would be the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

Currently holding that post is Frances Fragos Townsend.

She is required to develop a National Continuity Implementation Plan and submit it within 90 days.

As part of that plan, she is not only to devise procedures for the Executive Branch but also give guidance to “state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure.”

The secretary of Homeland Security is also directed to develop planning guidance for “private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators,” as well as state, local, territorial, and tribal governments.

The document gives the Vice President a role in implementing the provisions of the contingency plans.

“This directive shall be implanted in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 USC 19), with the consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved.”

The document also contains “classified Continuity Annexes.”

from http://progressive.org/mag_wx051807

___ actual presidential directive from whitehouse.gov:

National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive

White House News

NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51

HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-20

Subject: National Continuity Policy

Purpose

(1) This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes "National Essential Functions," prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.

Definitions

(2) In this directive:

(a) "Category" refers to the categories of executive departments and agencies listed in Annex A to this directive;

(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;

(c) "Continuity of Government," or "COG," means a coordinated effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency;

(d) "Continuity of Operations," or "COOP," means an effort within individual executive departments and agencies to ensure that Primary Mission-Essential Functions continue to be performed during a wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies;

(e) "Enduring Constitutional Government," or "ECG," means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency;

(f) "Executive Departments and Agencies" means the executive departments enumerated in 5 U.S.C. 101, independent establishments as defined by 5 U.S.C. 104(1), Government corporations as defined by 5 U.S.C. 103(1), and the United States Postal Service;

(g) "Government Functions" means the collective functions of the heads of executive departments and agencies as defined by statute, regulation, presidential direction, or other legal authority, and the functions of the legislative and judicial branches;

(h) "National Essential Functions," or "NEFs," means that subset of Government Functions that are necessary to lead and sustain the Nation during a catastrophic emergency and that, therefore, must be supported through COOP and COG capabilities; and

(i) "Primary Mission Essential Functions," or "PMEFs," means those Government Functions that must be performed in order to support or implement the performance of NEFs before, during, and in the aftermath of an emergency.

Policy

(3) It is the policy of the United States to maintain a comprehensive and effective continuity capability composed of Continuity of Operations and Continuity of Government programs in order to ensure the preservation of our form of government under the Constitution and the continuing performance of National Essential Functions under all conditions.

Implementation Actions

(4) Continuity requirements shall be incorporated into daily operations of all executive departments and agencies. As a result of the asymmetric threat environment, adequate warning of potential emergencies that could pose a significant risk to the homeland might not be available, and therefore all continuity planning shall be based on the assumption that no such warning will be received. Emphasis will be placed upon geographic dispersion of leadership, staff, and infrastructure in order to increase survivability and maintain uninterrupted Government Functions. Risk management principles shall be applied to ensure that appropriate operational readiness decisions are based on the probability of an attack or other incident and its consequences.

(5) The following NEFs are the foundation for all continuity programs and capabilities and represent the overarching responsibilities of the Federal Government to lead and sustain the Nation during a crisis, and therefore sustaining the following NEFs shall be the primary focus of

the Federal Government leadership during and in the aftermath of an emergency that adversely affects the performance of Government Functions:

(a) Ensuring the continued functioning of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government;

(b) Providing leadership visible to the Nation and the world and maintaining the trust and confidence of the American people;

(c) Defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and preventing or interdicting attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;

(d) Maintaining and fostering effective relationships with foreign nations;

(e) Protecting against threats to the homeland and bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes or attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;

(f) Providing rapid and effective response to and recovery from the domestic consequences of an attack or other incident;

(g) Protecting and stabilizing the Nation's economy and ensuring public confidence in its financial systems; and

(h) Providing for critical Federal Government services that address the national health, safety, and welfare needs of the United States.

(6) The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National

Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination.

(7) For continuity purposes, each executive department and agency is assigned to a category in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and

responsibilities in support of the Federal Government's ability to sustain the NEFs. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall serve as the President's lead agent for coordinating overall

continuity operations and activities of executive departments and agencies, and in such role shall perform the responsibilities set forth for the Secretary in sections 10 and 16 of this directive.

(8) The National Continuity Coordinator, in consultation with the heads of appropriate executive departments and agencies, will lead the development of a National Continuity Implementation Plan (Plan), which shall include prioritized goals and objectives, a concept of operations, performance metrics by which to measure continuity readiness, procedures for continuity and incident management activities, and clear direction to executive department and agency continuity coordinators, as well as guidance to promote interoperability of Federal Government continuity programs and procedures with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate. The Plan shall be submitted to the President for approval not later than 90 days after the date of this directive.

(9) Recognizing that each branch of the Federal Government is responsible for its own continuity programs, an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall ensure that the executive branch's COOP and COG policies in support of ECG efforts are appropriately coordinated with those of

the legislative and judicial branches in order to ensure interoperability and allocate national assets efficiently to maintain a functioning Federal Government.

(10) Federal Government COOP, COG, and ECG plans and operations shall be appropriately integrated with the emergency plans and capabilities of State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to promote interoperability and to prevent redundancies and conflicting lines of authority. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall coordinate the integration of Federal continuity plans and operations with State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.

(11) Continuity requirements for the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and executive departments and agencies shall include the following:

(a) The continuation of the performance of PMEFs during any emergency must be for a period up to 30 days or until normal operations can be resumed, and the capability to be fully operational at alternate sites as soon as possible after the occurrence of an emergency, but not later than 12 hours after COOP activation;

(b) Succession orders and pre-planned devolution of authorities that ensure the emergency delegation of authority must be planned and documented in advance in accordance with applicable law;

(c) Vital resources, facilities, and records must be safeguarded, and official access to them must be provided;

(d) Provision must be made for the acquisition of the resources necessary for continuity operations on an emergency basis;

(e) Provision must be made for the availability and redundancy of critical communications capabilities at alternate sites in order to support connectivity between

and among key government leadership, internal elements, other executive departments and agencies, critical partners, and the public;

(f) Provision must be made for reconstitution capabilities that allow for recovery from a catastrophic emergency and resumption of normal operations; and

(g) Provision must be made for the identification, training, and preparedness of personnel capable of relocating to alternate facilities to support the continuation of the performance of PMEFs.

(12) In order to provide a coordinated response to escalating threat levels or actual emergencies, the Continuity of Government Readiness Conditions (COGCON) system establishes executive branch continuity program readiness levels, focusing

on possible threats to the National Capital Region. The President will determine and issue the COGCON Level. Executive departments and agencies shall comply with the requirements and

assigned responsibilities under the COGCON program. During COOP activation, executive departments and agencies shall report their readiness status to the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary's designee.

(13) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall:

(a) Conduct an annual assessment of executive department and agency continuity funding requests and performance data that are submitted by executive departments and agencies as part of the annual budget request process, in order to monitor progress in the implementation of the Plan and the execution of continuity budgets;

(b) In coordination with the National Continuity Coordinator, issue annual continuity planning guidance for the development of continuity budget requests; and

(c) Ensure that heads of executive departments and agencies prioritize budget resources for continuity capabilities, consistent with this directive.

(14) The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall:

(a) Define and issue minimum requirements for continuity communications for executive departments and agencies, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President;

(b) Establish requirements for, and monitor the development, implementation, and maintenance of, a comprehensive communications architecture to integrate continuity components, in consultation with the APHS/CT, the APNSA, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Chief of Staff to the President; and

(c) Review quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities, as prepared pursuant to section 16(d) of this directive or otherwise, and report the results and recommended remedial actions to the National Continuity Coordinator.

(15) An official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall:

(a) Advise the President, the Chief of Staff to the President, the APHS/CT, and the APNSA on COGCON operational execution options; and

(b) Consult with the Secretary of Homeland Security in order to ensure synchronization and integration of continuity activities among the four categories of executive departments and agencies.

(16) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall:

(a) Coordinate the implementation, execution, and assessment of continuity operations and activities;

(b) Develop and promulgate Federal Continuity Directives in order to establish continuity planning requirements for executive departments and agencies;

(c) Conduct biennial assessments of individual department and agency continuity capabilities as prescribed by the Plan and report the results to the President through the APHS/CT;

(d) Conduct quarterly and annual assessments of continuity communications capabilities in consultation with an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President;

(e) Develop, lead, and conduct a Federal continuity training and exercise program, which shall be incorporated into the National Exercise Program developed pursuant to Homeland Security Presidential Directive-8 of December 17, 2003 ("National Preparedness"), in consultation with an

official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President;

(f) Develop and promulgate continuity planning guidance to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators;

(g) Make available continuity planning and exercise funding, in the form of grants as provided by law, to State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators; and

(h) As Executive Agent of the National Communications System, develop, implement, and maintain a comprehensive continuity communications architecture.

(17) The Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall produce a biennial assessment of the foreign and domestic threats to the Nation's continuity of government.

(18) The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall provide secure, integrated, Continuity of Government communications to the President, the Vice President, and, at a minimum, Category I executive departments and agencies.

(19) Heads of executive departments and agencies shall execute their respective department or agency COOP plans in response to a localized emergency and shall:

(a) Appoint a senior accountable official, at the Assistant Secretary level, as the Continuity Coordinator for the department or agency;

(b) Identify and submit to the National Continuity Coordinator the list of PMEFs for the department or agency and develop continuity plans in support of the NEFs and the continuation of essential functions under all conditions;

(c) Plan, program, and budget for continuity capabilities consistent with this directive;

(d) Plan, conduct, and support annual tests and training, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, in order to evaluate program readiness and ensure adequacy and viability of continuity plans and communications systems; and

(e) Support other continuity requirements, as assigned by category, in accordance with the nature and characteristics of its national security roles and responsibilities

General Provisions

(20) This directive shall be implemented in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 U.S.C. 19), with consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved. Heads of executive departments and agencies shall ensure that appropriate

support is available to the Vice President and others involved as necessary to be prepared at all times to implement those provisions.

(21) This directive:

(a) Shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and the authorities of agencies, or heads of agencies, vested by law, and subject to the availability of appropriations;

(b) Shall not be construed to impair or otherwise affect (i) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budget, administrative, and legislative proposals, or (ii) the authority of the Secretary of Defense over the Department of Defense, including the chain of command for military forces from the President, to the Secretary of Defense, to the commander of military forces, or military command and control procedures; and

(c) Is not intended to, and does not, create any rights or benefits, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its

agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(22) Revocation. Presidential Decision Directive 67 of October 21, 1998 ("Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations"), including all Annexes thereto, is hereby revoked.

(23) Annex A and the classified Continuity Annexes, attached hereto, are hereby incorporated into and made a part of this directive.

(24) Security. This directive and the information contained herein shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure, provided that, except for Annex A, the Annexes attached to this directive are classified and shall be accorded appropriate handling, consistent with applicable Executive Orders.

GEORGE W. BUSH

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

Launch May into Activism... Cascadia Spring

2007-04-25T17:24:14Z

There are two current political events happening that has had a call out for banner drops and stenciling: MayDay adnd a Day for calling Impeachment of the current Fascists in power (below are two posts on them). Added to this is the anniverary of the creation of the Oregon Independence Government back in 1843 at Champoeg. It would be nice to see a week of Cascadian activism in honor of that moment in time when the Oregon Country (bascially most of the bioregion of Cascadia) briefly was an independant country (third post below).

CASCADIA NOW OR WA BC UNITED . FREE (banner drop)
http://media.portland.indymedia.org/images/2007/04/358162.jpg

WEDNESDAYS SPRING TRAINING: STENCIL AND BANNER MAKING! GET READY FOR MAYDAY!!!
author: Mb e-mail:e-mail: mb(at)resist(dot)ca
Wiether you just wanna accesorize your affinity, or play with the spray this ones for the artist in you.

This is a spring training workshop. "SPRING TRAINING" is a month of workshops focused on educating and empowering the broad community to act for social justice!
The fun never stops at blue heron infoshop

Wednesday at 7PM
in the blue heron infohop (formerly the SAO, GCC 34, Reed College)

Wednesday's spring training workshop! Get ready for mayday! Or just plain "accesorize" your affinity with some rockin banners and signs! Sound fun? Well check this workshop out!

STENCIL MAKING WORKSHOP

Thomas will be doing a workshop on DIY stencil fun. Make shirts, make friends, remake the boring-as-fuck corporate aesthetic! All materials will be provided, just bring your beautiful selves and some dirty clothes.

This is a spring training workshop. "SPRING TRAINING" is a month of workshops focused on educating and empowering the broad community to act for social justice!

--------------------------------

Stick around the basement of GCC cause after the workshop...

ADELIT@S, NICKTAB, AND FLY THE COOP JUG BAND
WEDNESDAY-8pm-PING PONG ROOM (down the hall from blue heron)

Mexican folk influenced punk outfit Adelit@s is playing a show Wednesday
in the Ping Pong room with acoustic rocker Niktab, and the old timey
favorites, Fly the Coop Jug Band, starting at 8pm. This is a benefit for the Sin Fronteras paper that we'll be printing for Mayday. There is also a show at the Portland Collective Housing (PCH House) on Saturday, April 28, with Adelit@s, Rag and Bone Men, Smile Whiskey, and DJ Dimon (of Gogol Bordello). If you're going to miss them on Saturday, hear them for free on Wednesday.

Come find out about the amazing work Sin Fronteras Portland is doing and hear some kick ass music.

Sin Fronteras Mission Statement
Sin Fronteras Portland formed to confront the growing violence, and economic disparity caused by the U.S./Mexico Border (and all national borders) and U.S. Imperialism. The movement for immigrant rights and border justice has been focused on pandering to politicians, and trying to "reform" blatantly racist laws. We do not believe white supremacy can be "reformed". Where we see the left in the United States has failed, we seek to participate in the building of popular social movements towards economic and social justice; here in the belly of the beast.

Portland Sin Fronteras is committed to bringing the popular resistance struggles of Latin America across the U.S. border into the heart of the global capitalist empire. We seek to educate, mobilize and empower people by disseminating the radical ideas and culture from these struggles. We seek to inspire and build with others, towards taking action in our lives and our communities against racism, militarization, liberalism and build our vision of another world. A world driven by needs and not profit, a world where freedom of movement is about people not global financial interests.

Our focus as a group lies in building and understanding the border and in fighting white supremacy; and our aim is to combat capitalism as a system of domination and to link the anticapitalist struggles of Latin America toour own struggles here at home.
LIBERTAD PARA TOD@S!

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/04/358263.shtml

May 5 this Sat on I-205 Freeway Overpass Banner Blitz
author: Joe Anybdy (reposting) e-mail:e-mail: iam@joe-anybody.com
Reposting From An Email I Just Recieved
Sounds Like A Good Idea To Me
"I-205 Freeway Banner Blitz"
MAY 5th ANTI-WAR PROTESTS

PLANNED ON SERIES OF I-205/CLACKAMAS OVERPASSES

Well, there we were, "Shivering in the rain again", yesterday at our
anti-war protest on Sunnyside Road at I-205. We had our family of
four on one side of the overpass with 'BRING THEM HOME", "END THE
WAR', AND "HONK TO END THE WAR". On the other side of the overpass
was about 5 from the PDX911TRUTH group, with their '9/11 WAS AN INSIDE
JOB"; "BUSH LIED", AND "GOOGLE WTC7". It was very effective to have
one side focused on one message for each of our groups.

There weren't alot of us out there. But, the reactions from passersby
was very reactive -- lots of honking with thumbs up and peace -- and
lots of "the bird". A wadded up bag was thrown at David's back.
But by far, we usually get 10 to 1 honks in favor of our protest.

But, we need more folks out there with us -- on a regular basis. It
is only one hour a week. Would you please commit to being there with
us? Bring family and friends. Bribe them with a treat afterwards!
It's a great way to release pent up stress about the war. You feel
great after doing it. Plus, you meet new friends! Shivering in the
rain is nothing compared to what our troops are doing in Iraq. We do
this in our support for them, to get them home!

But, on May 5th, we are going to need an extra lot of people. We're
planning to do several overpasses in a row -- BAM! BAM! BAM! with
giant "SUPPORT THE TROOPS - BRING THEM HOME!" and 'UNJUST WAR IS
MURDER', 'IMPEACH BUSH!" etc. -- our message will not be ignored
this way. So come out to one of these protest sites along I-205, near
Clackamas, on Saturday, May 5th at 1pm-2pm. Bring large signs. You
can print out super large letters on a 8-1/2 x 11" paper (one letter
per page), cut them out and paste to a white or black painted
cardboard. Then, seal it with a sprayed or brushed on lacquer. Or
paint huge letters onto a large sheet and drape over the fence (not
over traffic, though). Remember not to obstruct vehicle or pedestrian
traffic in any way.

Protests at these I-205 Exits, between 1pm-2pm

Johnson Creek (need contact person)
SE Otty Road (need contact person)
SE Monterey Avenue @ I-205 (Keith Humphrey wayimp@yahoo.com)
SE Sunnyside (David Brownlow 503-307-3851 dave@davebrownlow.com and
Tim Titrud 503-701-3481mailto: 503-701-3481SixLeaves@aol.com )
SE Sunnybrook (Mark Pritchard 503-631-2507 harpy@ccwebster.net)

Thank you!

Suzanne Brownlow
Believers Against The War
http://www.believersagainstthewar.org/

homepage: homepage: http://www.joe-anybody.com

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/04/358158.shtml

May 2nd 1843 Founders Day Champoeg
author: Ecotopian Yeti
May 2nd marks Founders Day which in 1843 was the first western style democracy west of the Rockies. Maybe for Cascadians this should mark a day to honor our Bioregion. Today Founders Day is honored on May 6th with events at Champoeg State Park

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Cascadian_Bioregionalism/

For many Cascadians the first days of May should hold a value for several different reasons. For those conscious of labour movements (workers and the politally left) May Day was the international workers day marked with historical tragedies. This should be a history everyone should learn and honor those that fought and still fight for the rights and safety of all of us. For those Cascadians who honor various religious or spiritual paths associated with changing seasons and Nature then May Day marks an ancient holiday often celebrated as Beltaine. Also the day following May Day should have historical signifigance for Cascadians, Oregonians and the people of the various states and provinces that were the Old Oregon County. May 2nd marks the anniversary of "Founders' Day" the day in 1843 when European and mixed settlers in the French Prairie (within the Willamette Valley) at town of Champoeg voted to create the first independent western style democratic government. Those dedicated to preserving American national mythology about those events often simply claim it was an election decide on whether the Oregon Country should join the USA. The reality as in many cases with nation-state mythology is that the situation was far more complex that Amerikan nationalists would have people believe. Almost half voted against formation of an independent government for various reasons. For some because they were employed by the Hudson Bay Company that already managed for British citizens (including French Canadians and Metis) juridical matters in the region. For some it was fear that the US Americans were quickly spreading across North America using Anglo-American immigration to change the political landscape and therefore challenge any and all other residence of the region (Texas, California and the rest of the Mexican Cession where in the process of Amerikanization at the time). Some voted in favor of the formation of a government because of the lack of legal status for some residents that migrated from the US (the Ewing Young case was the prime legal case for that reason). Others voted for establishment of a government with the idea of a Republic of the Pacific in mind independent of the US (Osborne Russell even ran for the first Provisional Governor position in 1845 from the Independents stance). Thomas Jefferson himself sent the Corp of Discovery as a scientific exploration and deplomatic mission to the lands west of the Stony Mountains (the Rockies) not as US Amerikan national mythology suggests as exploring future conquest or annexation, but originally Jefferson envisioned the region as a future Republic of the Pacific independent and on its own path to a parallel democratic tradition. It was American expansionists like president Polk with a the campaign slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" and American nationalist journalist John Louis O'Sullivan with his concept of Divine American Imperialism in the concept of "Manifest Destiny" that drove the idea that the Oregon Country was the "property" of American Empire. Of course all this ignored what Native People and other residents thought in the region.

In Chinook Jargon the land west of the Rockies was called Chinook Illahee meaning land of the Chinook Jargon Speakers.

Using historical and civil events to deconstruct our shared history maybe one method to getting the meme out about Cascadia.

Unfortunately today the park system does not celebrate Founders Day on its origianl May 2nd, but does honor that historic event on May 6th at Champoeg (near Wilsonville).

www.champoeg.org/

homepage: homepage: http://republic-of-cascadia.tripod.com/

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/338582.shtml

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

ImpeachSpace.com

2007-03-09T03:52:38Z

Stay informed and connected on the impeachment issue. Check out the April 28th event.

www.ImpeachSpace.com

Thanks,
f.c.

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

BIBLICAL EVIDENCE THAT BUSH IS ANTICHRIST

2007-01-11T19:45:13Z

EXAMINING THE BIBLICAL EVIDENCE THAT BUSH IS ANTICHRIST

[Part 1 of 3]

Regarding “The End of Time” the Bible states:
"There will be signs in the heavens" (sky), which likely relates to the vast number of saucer-sightings since the 1st atomic test at Los Alamos NM. Also stating that ;
"There will be signs on earth" ... which likely relates to the many complex geometrical crop circles.
The Bible also makes reference to the rebirth of the State of Israel as a sign of the end, saying "The fig tree will put forth its branch" (Luke 21:29), and also that "One head of the beast came back to life from the dead" … again presumably The State of Israel which was revived in 1948 … an integral part of the Roman Empire ... referred to in the Bible as "The Beast" … (actually “monster” in original tongue).

Also an important signal is the prophesy of "Wormwood" -(Rev. 8:11) the word Wormwood is "Chernobyl" in Russian … a Nuclear Facility which could easily be depicted as a Fallen Star in metaphorical language (parables), being that stars are radioactive bodies as are reactors. Wormwood is an ancient medicinal herb (Artemisia Absinthium) which has been used for thousands of years to kill internal parasites and to make a liquor called Absinth, and is known around the world by several names.

It is possible that the world is much farther ahead in prophesy (1000 yrs.) than people are willing to accept having been conditioned and pre-programmed by intense institutional doctrine. They say that Anti-Christ must first set up his throne in Jerusalem. And the antichrist identity be revealed before Christ appears. The Bible states that a thousand years is a day and a day is a thousand years, so “The Day of The Lord” may be a metaphorical term relating to a time which is not measured, this time which is a metaphor and/or enigma.

I pointed out that Revelation speaks of a “new heaven” and a “new earth” ... and a "New JerUSAlem" ...Since it’s discovery America has been referred to as “The New World” !
A land which pursues the exploration of space (the “New Heaven”).

And one which fits the description of the "Promised Land" at least as well as Palestine (America being the worlds #1 producer of Milk ... it is said that the Biblical Promised Land "flows with milk.
America was the “Land of Promise” ... because it offered religious freedom to so many persecuted groups in Europe ... they migrated to "The Promised Land" that’s how Caucasians got here.

So wouldn’t then the "New JerUSAlem" be the power center of the New World (as is Washington DC) ? And wouldn’t this New JerUSAlem be the place where the antichrist sets up his throne ?
Revelation speaks of the New World having 12 gates, possibly the 12 main sea ports, which stretch from the Great Lakes to Seattle WA.

I was asked "If this is true then what about the bible
script which says that Christ will come on his white horse with all the armies of heaven and slay the wicked, and every eye will see him"
I realized that one such bible prophesy was fulfilled in the days of the crusades when the Christians took back Jerusalem, Revelation 14:20 says "The blood will run as high as the horses bridal". This event became documented history when forces led by the Knights Templar slaughtered Moslems to an extent which caused their horses to wade through rivers of blood 3 feet deep.
I am not suggesting that Moslems are evil either, only acknowledging the reality that they and Christians have been adversaries to each other since their origins, battling over control of Jerusalem.
To Christians Moslems are antichrist to Moslems Christians are the infidels. Actually to historians they are "half-brothers" locked in a sibling rivalry.

IS GEORGE BUSH “THE IMAGE OF THE BEAST” ?
In the Bible it becomes clear that the "Image of the beast" is "THE EVIL ONE", the "False Prophet" (Pope) and "The Beast" take second lead.
In Genesis it states that God made his sons in his "image" ... (like father like son). Therefore should we ask ... could the "image" of the beast be someone’s son ... made in the image of their father (like father like son)?
Project Disclosure (http://www.projectdisclosure.org) reveals that George Bush senior denied access of Extraterrestrial Info to President Carter when he was director of the CIA.

Copyright © 2006 Sacred WinePress: All rights reserved, no part of this text may be reproduced, stored in a database or other retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without credit to the publisher.
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posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 2 replies

The Propaganda War over Venezuela (in free online films)

2006-12-04T00:44:43Z

The Propaganda War over Venezuela (in free online films)

The following are video files about the current situation in Venezuela. The first movie is actually not about Venezuela, but is about he American orchestrated coup in the “Banana Republic” of Guatemala in 1954 for the United Fruits. This movie looks how American imperialism manufactures lies and distorts information for corporatist pursuits. The next two films are by Greg Palast. Followed by an eight part documentary called “Chavez - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” followed by “Venezuela Bolivariana: People and the struggle of the 4th world war” and “Venezuela - Uncle Sam's Coup?” (which also documents unknown snipers that killed average citizens). The next series is films from the opposition. Watch how they use imagery to link Chavez to communism and even prostitution. Over the last summer, Gene Sharp's group Albert Einstein Institute (AEI), which does workshops on non-violent revolutions, has been having workshops with oppositions to Hugo Chavez. There is a strong possibility the corporatists with American Imperialist financing could try to generated “manufactured consent” the hours and days after this news series of Venezuelan elections. Beware that Venezuela maybe the stage for a false "color revolution" that would be manufactured in the corporate media.

the following are descriptions and links to films documenting Venezuela the last few years:

Engeniering of Consent: Guatemala coup 1954
07:09
Extract from "The century of the self" by Adam Curtis. Story behind the coup d'etat which toppled elected president Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. The film explains how Edward Bernays, recruited by United Fruits, created the conditions for a government intervention. Mass media were successfully used for manipulating the public and generating consensus around a military action involving the CIA.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jnYZVNVqBgU

Greg Palast covers a story on President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4991354545733857055&q=VENEZUELA&hl=en or google video search of Greg Palast covers a story on President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela

Hugo Chavez interview by Greg Palast

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-742015553245977789&q=Hugo+Chavez

HUGO CHAVEZ ELECTED PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA IN 1998, IS A COLORFUL, UNPREDICTABLE FOLK HERO, beloved by his nation's working class and a tough-as-nails, quixotic opponent to the power structure that would see him deposed. Two independent filmmakers were inside the presidential palace on April 11, 2002, when he was forcibly removed from office. They were also present 48 hours later when, remarkably, he returned to power amid cheering aides. Their film records what was probably history's shortest-lived coup d'état. It's a unique document about political muscle and an extraordinary portrait of the man The Wall Street Journal credits with making Venezuela "Washington‚s biggest Latin American headache after the old standby, Cuba."

Part 1 of 8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=8kmMzukS1cs
Part 2 of 8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=M6oEvlvk56s&mode=related&search=
Part 3 of 8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ft2435ycuZU&mode=related&search=
Part 4 of 8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=25rLLizbwoI&mode=related&search=
Part 5 of 8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=lTuSjU8IVL4&mode=related&search=
Part 6 of 8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=DY24bo9jnX8
Part 7 of 8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=a1ruUmNubhU
Part 8 of 8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=qzIV0OA5Oao

Venezuela Bolivariana: People and the struggle of the 4th world war

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3117181384995669233&q=VENEZUELA

Venezuela - Uncle Sam's Coup?
When Chavez was briefly ousted from power in 2002, many suspected America was involved. Now, a lawyer has obtained incriminating CIA documents proving it was.

A top secret CIA brief, written five days before the coup, proves the most incriminating. “It says the coup will take place in the first weeks of April, violence will be provoked in an opposition rally and the President will be taken prisoner”, states lawyer, Eva Golinger. “This is what happened.” Golinger has spent the last three years investigating the coup, tracing the money trail from Washington to key organisations involved. “It wasn’t just that they were giving them money. They quadrupled the funding from 2001 to 2002.” Other declassified documents show the US Embassy praising the coup leader as “the right man at the right time for Venezuela”. Remarkably, although the coup failed, Washington has stepped up its funding for the opposition. As Golinger states: “It’s as if they said ‘We didn’t give you guys enough. We’ve got to give you more because you failed.’” But ironically, America’s support for the opposition seems to have only strengthened Chavez’s hold on power.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4124074101371070575&q=VENEZUELA&hl=en

Plan V para recuparar la Democracia en Venezuela el 3-D
03:37
Este es el Plan de acción No Violenta que promueve la oposición en Venezuela para salvarla del Castro Comunismo de Hugo Chávez y su llamada Revolución Bolivariana.

"La teoria de que el poder deriva de la violencia, y que la victoria necesariamente va del lado de la mayor capacidad para ejercer la violencia, es falsa".

Gene Sharp
El Poder de la Fe

Este video fue realizado por ORVEX (Organización de Venezolanos en el Exilio) tomando la presentación en FLASH que aparece en la sección del Plan V del sitio www.atrevetevenezuela.com.

ORVEX
www.orvex.org/noviolencia.html

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BJ989_vIjhQ

Una Versión Diferente del Amor de Hugo Chávez
05:00
Todo tiene su final. En ORVEX creemos que esta pesadilla que se viste de demócrata solo podrá salir si se usan los espacios democráticos que aún quedan en Venezuela para aplicar técnicas no violentas de lucha.

"La teoria de que
el poder deriva de la violencia,
y que la victoria necesariamente va del lado
de la mayor capacidad para ejercer
la violencia, es falsa"

Gene Sharp
El Poder de la Fe

Te invitamos a conocer las técnicas no violentas, las mismas que utilizaron Gandhi en la India y Martin Luther King en los Estados Unidos, para devolverle la Libertad y la Democracia a Venezuela.

http://www.orvex.org/noviolencia.html

"Huid del país donde uno solo ejerce todos los poderes. Es un país de Esclavos". Simón Bolivar

http://youtube.com/watch?v=t64GCvNIcck

¿Qué será de los Venezolanos después del 3-D?
03:59
Video que busca motivar a todos los Venezolanos para que SIN MIEDO este 3 de Diciembre de 2006 SALGAN A VOTAR en contra de Hugo Chávez y a COBRAR.

Aún cuando sabemos que Hugo Chávez no va a dejar el poder, independientemente de los resultados, porque simplemente él no es democrático, el ir a votar masivamente en su contra es un signo de que NO LE TENEMOS MIEDO.

Otro signo de que NO LE TENEMOS MIEDO a Hugo Chávez será el quedarnos en las mesas para observar LOS ESCRUTINIOS, es decir, el conteo de los votos, ya que ese acto es público, Y EXIGIR EL CONTEO MANUAL.

Es muy importante NO TENER MIEDO, porque lo único que le puede seguir dando el poder a Hugo Chávez es si nosotros le demostramos MIEDO y si ACTUAMOS CON MIEDO.

Es importante saber que el poder que hoy día tiene Hugo Chávez se basa en el MIEDO que nosotros le demostremos, y NO en LA VIOLENCIA que el pueda ejercer. Y Hugo Chávez, COMO ES MILITAR, piensa (ERRADAMENTE) que las ARMAS Y LA VIOLENCIA lo mantendrán en el poder, ya que las utiliza PARA INFLIGIR MIEDO en los Venezolanos. De hecho, él ya ha comprado más de 100 mil fusiles Kalasmikov para amedrentar a la oposición interna más que para defenderse de una supuesta agresión externa imaginaria que nunca llega.

A medida que la oposición sucumba al miedo, más poder le estará otorgando a Hugo Chávez y a sus seguidores.

El peligro actual que tiene la oposición, y que sellará su derrota el 3 de Diciembre si no actua correctamente de aquí en adelante, está en creer que la violencia es el único camino de obtener el poder, y que la victoria esta del lado del que tiene más armas.

La buena noticia es la siguiente:

"La teoria de que el poder deriva de la violencia, y de que la victoria necesariamente va del lado de la mayor capacidad para ejercer la violencia, es falsa."

Gene Sharp
El Rol del Poder en la Lucha No Violenta
www.orvex.org/noviolencia.html

Para Hugo CHavez, el PODER actual que tiene deriva del MIEDO que la gente le pueda tener. Y si NO LE TENEMOS MIEDO a Hugo Chávez, éste caerá sin remedio INDEPENDIENTEMENTE DE QUE EL TENGA MAS ARMAS QUE EL PUEBLO.

Es por ello que "LA CAPACIDAD DE DESAFIAR Y LA CAPACIDAD DE RESISTIR" se convierten en el aspecto central del poder, y que su acción efectiva radica en que exista una oposición unida, o lo que Gene Sharp llama "oposición corporativa".

ORVEX, en su afán por reducir el fenómeno del Exilio, la Persecución Política, y el Número de Solicitudes de Asilo Político, está promoviendo la utilización de TECNICAS DE LUCHA NO VIOLENTA para que la oposición venezolana las conozca y las ponga en práctica DE LA MANERA CORRECTA, y evitar que suceda lo que pasó en Venezuela, por ejemplo, durante la Huelga General de 2 meses realizada entre el 2 de Diciembre de 2002 y el 2 de Febrero de 2003, la cual buscaba sacar a Hugo Chávez de una manera pacífica y democrática, pero que NO FUE DEBIDAMENTE LIDERADA porque la misma sirvió para desgastar a la oposición y desmoralizarla, y no cumplió el objeto para la cual fue convocada: SACAR A HUGO CHAVEZ.

Por la fatídica experiencia venezolana, se podría llegar a pensar que la LUCHA NO VIOLENTA no tiene sentido ni es efectiva. Sin embargo, si nos detenemos a ver que Gandhi en la India logró vencer a los Británicos SIN HACER UN SOLO DISPARO, y que Martin Luther King Jr. logró los Derechos Civiles de las personas de color en los Estados Unidos SIN VIOLENCIA, entonces la pregunta no es si las técnicas de protestas no violentas sirven o no sirven, sino que la cuestión está en COMO APLICARLAS.

La diferencia que tenemos con los Cubanos, es que a los Venezolanos AUN NOS QUEDAN PEQUEÑOS ESPACIOS DEMOCRATICOS como el de IR A ELECCIONES.

Si no nos ponemos las pilas los Venezolanos este 3 de Diciembre de 2006, Hugo Chávez cerrará los pequeños espacios democrátioos que quedan en Venezuela, para hacer que toda Venezuela sea ROJA ROJITA. Es por ello que las elecciones del 3 de Diciembre no son unas elecciones más, sino LA ULTIMA OPORTUNIDAD de demostrarle a Hugo Chávez QUE NO LE TENEMOS MIEDO, que VAMOS A VOTAR, que VAMOS ESTAR AHI PRESENTES durante el conteo de votos, y que VAMOS A RECUPERAR la Libertad y Democracia en Venezuela.

Es nuestra ULTIMA OPORTUNIDAD. No hay otra.

Si tenemos MIEDO y no aprovechamos esta ULTIMA OPORTUNIDAD, entonces VENEZUELA SERA OTRA CUBA, y creo que ninguno de nosotros deseará que nuestras mujeres, hijas y nietas terminen como las mujeres cubanas que aparecen en el Video, y creo que ninguno de nosotros deseará vivir en un sistema BASADO EN EL MIEDO Y EL TERROR.

Si no, no nos quedará otra que seguir el consejos de Simón Bolivar (que no era chavista, por cierto):

"Huid del país donde uno solo ejerce todos los poderes: Es un país de esclavos".

Animo, y a cobrar este 3-D.

Elio Aponte
C.I. V.- 5.531.657
Presidente
www.orvex.org

http://youtube.com/watch?v=u1PF2n4c1a0

El Terrorismo Petrolero de la PDVSA Chavista

Se puede creer en cosas que no se han visto. Y si alguien tenía dudas del secuestro de PDVSA, este memo podrá ayudar.

Es un tema en technicolor para hacer algo útil del amor. AMOR, palabra vilmente prostituida:

" ... he actuado unicamente por AMOR y lealtad a MI PUEBLO en todos mis pensamientos, y actos de mi vida. Ellos me dieron la fuerza para tomar las decisiones mas difíciles que mortal alguno nunca confrontó. En ello he empleado mi vida, mi esfuerzo en el trabajo y mi salud ..."

"Mi Testamento Político", primera parte, 1945.
Adolfo Hitler.

No se puede negar la existencia de algo palpado, por más etereo que sea. No se puede exigir una prueba de decencia de aquello que es tan verdadero.

Que más prueba que este memo de PDVSA, de tantos que hay, de la verdadera ilegalidad, inmoralidad, indecencia, e ignorancia.

La nobleza y pureza del Sistema Democrático ha sido vilmente burlada, violada y secuestrada por el Chavismo.

Los Chavistas están desbordados.

Venezuela es cual Supermercado, en donde uno encuentra que no hay cajeros, y ve a la gente salir con lo que puede, con sus carritos y bolsillos llenos de víveres y productos, mientras que por la parte trasera van llegando más camiones con mercancia, y el ciudadano decente mira desde afuera y le pide al vigilante que haga algo para detener el saqueo, y éste responde con indiferencia: "Si no tienes el Carnet Rojo de entrada, no puedes pasar ni agarrar nada. Ellos están con el proceso, y pasan cuando quieren y agarran cuanto quieren. ¿Que esperas para unirte al cambio?".

El Chavismo se desbordó con su indecencia; banda de delincuentes, que violan la Ley, malversando los fondos del país, violando los derechos humanos ante la mirada impune de las autoridades.

Los Chavistas, viviendo en la romería de los mutilados, en la fantasía de los infelices, en el día a día de las meretrices, de todos los bandidos y desvalidos.

No tienen decencia, ni nunca tendrán.

Oh, ¿que será de Venezuela, oh que será?

En pantalla, solo algunos de los nombres de los miles. Como dice su líder: "AL MUNDO".

Finalmente, por sus crímenes pagarán. Porque ya se oye la puerta tocar ... ay ! .... la puerta tocar. La puerta de salida de este régimen nefasto que algún día le llegará su hora.

Viva Venezuela Libre, Democrática, Decente y Próspera en donde impere la Ley y haya igualdad de Deberes y Derechos.

________

Música del gran Willie Colón.

ORGANIZACION DE VENEZOLANOS EN EL EXILIO
ORVEX
www.orvex.org

Transcripciones de Asilo Politico en Estados Unidos trabajamos por Internet - Ni importa en que parte de los EE.UU. ud. se encuentre. Precios solidarios y facilidades de pago:
www.miasiloenusa.com

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gG3bQ7lJoDY&mode=related&search=

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

Leading Democrats say "No to Impeachment of Bush.. it is off the table"

2006-11-12T00:24:53Z

Leading Democrats say "No to Impeachment of Bush.. it is off the table"

Conyers Toes Party Line: No Impeachment
Something Is Extremely 'Rotten In The State Of Denmark'

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Friday, November 10, 2006

The latest Democrat "saviour" to flip flop 180 degrees in light of
their victory is Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. Presumed to become
chairman of the House Judiciary Committee in January, Conyers today
said that impeachment of President Bush "is off the table."

"In this campaign, there was an orchestrated right-wing effort to
distort my position on impeachment, " Conyers said in a statement
released by his Judiciary Committee spokesman. "The incoming speaker
(Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.) has said that impeachment is off the
table. I am in total agreement with her on this issue: Impeachment
is off the table."

Conyers seems to have forgotten that last December he laid out the
grounds for impeachment in a 350 page long report called "The
Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception,
Manipulation, Torture, Retribution and Cover-ups in the Iraq War"
and later updated to add "illegal domestic surveillance. "

For a while Conyers was the darling of left leaning bloggers and
readers everywhere:

At this site, we are especially proud of the new Conyers
Report, "The Constitution in Crisis." By purchasing this book, you
have the opportunity to own a part of history and help the
Congressman hold the Bush Administration accountable. Your
assistance in helping Congressman Conyers become the next Chairman
of the House Judiciary Committee will bring us one step closer to
getting the American people the answers from this Administration
that they deserve.
- www.afterdowningstr eet.org

Conyers is so admirable. One of the very few in Congress who still
has integrity and principles. It is too bad that he does not get
more MSM coverage but why would they do that? He might upset the
Republican and Corporate plans for total control and could expose
their nefarious doings.
He is risking much by not following the official DNC program too, in
addition to challenging the Bushies.
- Huffington Post

In december 2005, upon release of the report, Conyers stated:

The Report concludes that a number of these actions amount to prima
facie evidence (evidence sufficiently strong to presume the
allegations are true) that federal criminal laws have been violated.
Legal violations span from false statements to Congress to
whistleblower laws... The Report also concludes that these charges
clearly rise to the level of impeachable conduct... In response to
the Report, I have already taken a number of actions. First, I have
introduced a resolution (H. Res. 635) creating a Select Committee
with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush
Administration with regard to the Iraq war and report on possible
impeachable offenses.

So Conyers was already underway with setting up investigations into
impeachable offences, but now he says that impeachment is off the
table? Clearly he has been given orders to toe the party line or
face the consequences.

Despite the fact that 86% want to see the President impeached,
leading Democrats have already ruled this out. The same leading
Democrats that voted for the war in Afghanistan, for the Patriot
Act, for Homeland Security and against a bill that simply condemned
torture of prisoners in Iraq.

After Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean, Conyers is the latest Democrat
to show us their true colours once in power.

Conyers and the other Democrats highlight precisely why we need to
regroup, consolidate and redouble our efforts in light of the
theatrical shift of power in Washington to the left. Because as soon
as this happened, overnight, the truth movement lost a great deal of
support from those that believe the job is now done.

Taking note of many reader comments over the past few days I have
noticed a startling uprise in the amount of negative and dismissive
feedback from some readers. Evidently those who expected us to be
out dancing in the streets at the news of a Democrat landslide in
Washington have been bitterly disappointed.

We have never once suggested that the solution to a corrupt and
fascist Neocon leadership is a passive and capitulating Democrat
sideshow leadership, so why is it any surprise that we are
continuing on the same course as before?

Comments such as the following emphasize my point:

"You can only have it one way. What the hell is up with you people.
The whole time the Bush regime was in power you begged for change.
Now you have it, but your still complaining. "

Yes we are seeking change, but not a simple change of personnel as
we have witnessed this week. As we reported yesterday "There's no
doubt about it, to see frothing Neo-Cons who have been strutting
around like John Wayne for the past five years finally eat humble
pie is a breath of fresh air, but let's not be so deluded as to
think that the Neo-Con agenda, which took decades to craft, was
simply brushed aside by the victory of a party that has supported
Bush every step of the way on major issues."

Seeing Bush on TV admitting he'd took a hell of a beating was great,
for about five minutes, then he started laughing and joking about it
and talking about pushing forward to work closely with a new crowd.

Is rolling over and going back to sleep going to get Bush impeached?
Should we shut down the websites now and go save the whales or
something else we'd all love to be doing if we didn't have to
relentlessly keep fighting to stop our leaders killing our freedoms?

Within hours the Democratic elite have shown us that they don't give
a damn about holding the Bush administration up to scrutiny. With no
effective opposition in the form of a political party it is up to
the people to continue to demand justice and to continue to attempt
to reign in those who have heinously abused their power.

Thomas Jefferson described Congress as "a body to which the people
send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question
everything and yield nothing."

In light of this how can any representative say something like
impeachment is 'off the table?'

found at
http://www.infowars .net/articles/ november2006/ 101106Rotten. htm

Nancy Pelosi on YouTube and Howard Dean

Nancy Pelosi on the YouTube saying "NO TO IMPEACHMENT... ITS OFF THE TABLE"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=R-4vw2qw3Wc
or
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mAGCgY4PDNA

Howard Dean Says No Impeachment Of Bush
Lapdog Democrats to waste two years on minimum wage and mass illegal amnesty, no to Iraq inquiry, no to police state rollback, no to bringing troops home

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, November 9, 2006

Howard Dean last night said there would be no impeachment proceedings against President Bush under a Democrat controlled Congress, echoing the pledge of Nancy Pelosi to protect the administration that lied a nation into a war and dismantled the very fabric of America.

Here's the exchange from Dean's appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night.

STEWART: "How long in your mind do you feel it's gonna be before power corrupts you absolutely?"

DEAN: "Well, you know...."

STEWART: "The last guys did it in three and a half days, what are you guys aiming for?"

DEAN: "Longer than that."

DEAN: "I know half the audience wants us to impeach the President and all that kind of stuff but we're not gonna do that - we're not gonna do that."

Dean is toeing the party line first crystallized by Nancy Pelosi when she told the 60 Minutes program, "Impeachment is off the table....it's a pledge....it is a waste of time."

When will jubilant mindless liberals realize that their darling Democrats have been installed as ringers to halt the momentum of the anti-war and 9/11 truth movements while committing to shielding the Bush administration for the very crimes and misdemeanors that supposedly cost them the House and Senate in the first place?

Democrats have already clearly stated how they intend to "get to work" over the next two years - by helping Bush push through a mass amnesty for illegal aliens - something his own republican House even prevented him doing - and also wasting time on the non-issue of the minimum wage.

Will raising the minimum wage and legalizing all illegal aliens help rollback the devastation the Bush administration has wrought on the U.S. Constitution?

Will raising the minimum wage and legalizing all illegal aliens bring the troops home?

Will raising the minimum wage and legalizing all illegal aliens re-instate the nine amendments to the Constitution that were abolished under the Military Commissions Act?

Will raising the minimum wage and legalizing all illegal aliens do anything to can the unconstitutional domestic eavesdropping program?

Will raising the minimum wage and legalizing all illegal aliens do anything to claw back the out of control deficit?

We were told the Republicans were abandoned because of corruption and Iraq and yet the Democrat shills have completely avoided specifics about how they intend to address these issues and on the question of impeachment have vowed to protect Bush. Empty rhetoric about a "policy change" in Iraq is nothing more than hot air betrayed by a legacy of Democrat support for keeping the troops in the quagmire - exemplified no better than Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, who both support imperial jaunts in the name of the "war on terror."

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has already stated that Blair's government will not co-operate with any move to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and she needn't worry because the Democrats are not going to even try it.

The Associated Press reports that Pelosi and Bush have already proclaimed reconciliation and are now "making nice" and devising how they can work in tandem. Tuesday's vote and its superficial euphoric aftermath was not about a populist reaction to six years of abuse and deceit - it was a sad indictment of the fact that a majority of Americans, particularly the establishment left, still buy the hoax that the Republicrats and the Democons are anything more than two different CEO's bidding for control of Slavery Incorporated.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2006/091106deansaysno.htm

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

We have lived as if in a trance.

2006-10-19T21:16:00Z

"The Beginning of the End of America."

SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
Countdown
Updated: 3:00 p.m. ET Oct. 19, 2006

On Tuesday, President Bush signed legislation authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and paving the way for trials before military commissions.

Tonight, "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann addresses the legislation in a special comment entitled "The Beginning of the End of America."

You can read an excerpt of Olbermann's comment below.

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived as people in fear.

And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awaken to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before—and we have been here before, led here by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.

We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been only human.

We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”

We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always wrong.

“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?

“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”

"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies that imperil us all.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know—just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --- did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for -- and convene a Military Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15321167/

audio:

http://podcast.msnbc.com/audio/podcast/pd_countdown-10-18-2006-180800.mp3

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

America Fuck Yeah

2006-10-05T19:51:59Z

The Foley Scandel is a distraction.
Ment to draw people's attention away from the fact the Mr Bush is trying to pass a bill that will retroactivly pardon him for his war crimes, Our dear idiot puppet Prez is doing what ever he can to stay out of jail, thats right jail, he is using what is commanly known a Dazzel Camoflauge to distract the public from his parties real agenda.

Under the War Crimes Act passed by president Clinton in 96 as it stands today, touture and or humliation of detainees a crime punishable by jail and or death..

And lets not forget that Ms Rice is now being questioned about her foreknowlege of 9-11 threats way before the fact, and could have stoped the whole mess way before it happened. Ms Rice has completely denied everything.
She even denies, ordering the briefings (that she signed) of other white house staff members about the imminent threat.

It is by no means a quincidence that a sex scandel pops up, just in time to distract the media and the public at large from this governments shady, dangerous and inhumane wheellings and dealings.

America Fuck Yeah

thats all thanks

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

Six Questions on the American “Gulag” for Historian Kate Brown

2006-09-26T12:38:42Z

Six Questions on the American “Gulag” for Historian Kate Brown
Posted on Friday, September 22, 2006. Kate Brown is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her book, A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland won the American Historical Association’s George Louis Beer Prize. As a historian of Soviet history, she has sifted through an array of declassified NKVD and KGB documents about the abuse of prisoners in the Gulag. Her article, “Out of Solitary Confinement: The History of the Gulag,” will be published in Kritika vol. 8, no. 1 (Winter 2007). Brown recently answered a series of questions about the American penal and detention system, especially as it has developed post-9/11. By Ken Silverstein.
Sources1. In 2005, Amnesty International charged that the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo makes the prison “the Gulag of our times.” After public outcry and a media attack, Amnesty retracted the charge. Is the metaphor appropriate?

Soviet arrests were designed to inspire terror. Some people were taken off the street. Others were surprised in their beds in late night roundups. In Soviet prisons, detainees were stripped, searched, and led into special rooms where they were told to face the wall and assume stress positions. Most people were rounded up with no real evidence and without prior investigation. Interrogators withheld food, water, medical assistance, communication with relatives, and sleep until detainees agreed to talk. The most resistant detainees were beaten while handcuffed or tied.

Granted such liberty in dealing with prisoners, some Soviet officers started to enjoy themselves. They made up games, forcing prisoners to dance, smearing glue on their heads, stripping them naked, pouring frigid water over them. Sometimes guards had too much fun and a prisoner died. Then prison-appointed doctors, who often participated in the interrogations, wrote up fictive autopsy reports. Declassified FBI and U.S. Army detailing abuses detainees in U.S. detention centers uncannily echo Soviet NKVD reports. They recount late-night roundups of civilians and describe prisoners held in chambers of extreme heat or cold, chained naked to the floor without food and water for days on end, defecating on themselves, beaten (some to death), forced to dance, to lick their shoes and body parts, to crawl around, and to bark like dogs. American doctors and psychiatrists helped devise methods of inflicting pain and fear to elicit confessions, and they signed false reports when detainees died in custody.

2. Didn't the Soviets lock up far greater numbers of people than are now being detained by the United States?

Indeed, American editorialists grounded their rejection of the Gulag metaphor in numbers. Soviet officials routed millions through the Gulag over several decades (3.7 million according to archival records). In the American case, we are talking about a mere 500 prisoners in Guantanamo, and roughly 30,000 in U.S. detention centers in Iraq. Human Rights Watch estimates that 50,000 people are currently held in domestic prisons without charges. It is undoubtedly true that the torture of tens of thousands is better than the torture of millions. But this defense becomes rather weak, not only if one believes in universal civil liberties and human rights, but also if one considers history. The methods of detention and interrogation used by investigators in Iraq and Cuba derive from CIA manuals issued in 1963 that assumed that the detainee would not be a Muslim extremist but a Soviet agent. The methods practiced and propagated during the Cold War have migrated to the “war on terror” so seamlessly that American soldiers photographed their human-rights violations and shared the photos with no idea they were incriminating themselves.

3. How does the American system compare with the Soviet in respect for due process and legal norms, and in terms of punishment and the treatment of prisoners?

Both Soviet and American laws banned torture of prisoners, guaranteed habeas corpus, and limited the range of punishments a prisoner could receive. In both countries, abuses occurred nonetheless—not in isolated instances, but in the “migration” of practices across great distances, which suggests systemic violations of the laws.

We know, in fact, about Soviet and American abuses in astonishing detail because government investigators went to prisons with notebook and camera and emerged appalled at what they saw. The purpose of those investigations, one would imagine, would be to expose illegal detention and torture in order to stop it. But despite the nearly annual Soviet investigations into abuses, the Gulag continued unhindered for nearly three decades. Despite FBI and Army investigations in Iraq and Cuba, the White House persists in justifying the use of secret CIA prisons in undisclosed foreign locations to sequester terrorist suspects without charge. Rather than exposing abuses in order to end them, official Soviet and American investigations served the purpose of placing the blame for institutionalized abuse on individuals—U.S. Army privates, Soviet prison guards, and NKVD security officers. Finding individuals to blame absolved the governments which had set up the conditions for torture. Scapegoating individuals also enabled Soviet and American ideologues to reiterate yet again their societies’ commitment to justice and civil rights, despite all evidence to the contrary.

4. The Bush Administration is targeting non-citizens it accuses of being terrorists. Didn't the Soviets mostly imprison and abuse their own citizens? So isn't it true that, in the American case, the “gulag” is a response to a real or perceived national security threat, while the Soviets were simply seeking to crush dissent?

During the Cold War the idea arose that the Gulag was primarily an instrument of terror to crush dissent. But declassified Soviet documents do not bear this out. By far, most of the people who landed in the Gulag were there for garden-variety offenses: theft of property, assault, hooliganism, and white-collar crime. They were not influential intellectuals who posed a threat to the regime, but poor, uneducated, and culturally marginalized peasants who broke draconian laws in order to make a living. The search for terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan has also targeted the weak and vulnerable. United States Army officials admit that 90 percent of the civilians detained in Iraq were later released without charges. The dragnet in Afghanistan also seems to have netted civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The detention of people who turn out to be innocent bystanders gives a new definition to the phrase “non-combatants.”

5. Have American government officials been more willing to take responsibility for abuses than their Soviet counterparts?

Long after the abuses were made public, Vice President Dick Cheney denied any mistreatment of detainees at Guantánamo. He said that the detainees “have been well treated, treated humanely and decently,” adding, “Occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment, but if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who had been inside and released to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated.” With his bald-faced denial of torture, Cheney illustrated how Guantánamo shares aspects of the Gulag. His performance mimicked that of the famed Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, who several months after smiling broadly for a photo in front of the notorious Solovetsky Labor Camp, lied with sanctimony when refuting reports of Soviet camp abuses. In an article published in Pravda on March 5, 1931, Gorky wrote that “convict labor” was “a petty, foul slander” aimed at economically isolating and weakening the USSR. “The Soviet regime,” Gorky said, “does not employ convict labor even in prisons.”

When a state goes to the trouble of sanctioning the torture of civilians for purposes of political control, government officials do not willingly own up to these practices. And those who expose abuse are discredited as slanderers, and accused of “peddling lies” and ultimately of abetting the enemy.

6. Does the tolerance for abuses committed during the “war on terrorism” have any implications for the health of democracy at home?

The President’s broad new powers in the signing statements that enable him to override Congress have corroded the American system of checks and balances. American law enforcement agencies can now wiretap American civilians and detain citizens and permanent residents without charges, and consequently without evidence. Last week the House passed legislation to build a 700-mile Israeli-style fence on the U.S.–Mexico border and to deploy there many of the surveillance technologies tested in Iraq. Perhaps the domestic installation of wartime technologies and military surveillance in civilian settings has become acceptable to us because we have become accustomed, as Soviet citizens did during the endless Stalinist purges, to open-ended wars—wars with no opening salvo and no concluding treaty. Whether or not one agrees that American detention centers and secret prisons are the “Gulag of our time,” the comparison deserves serious consideration. It might help us shine a torch into the dark corners of repression, where the totalitarian qualities of our own society lurk, before the scale of violence ascends to Gulag dimensions.

found at http://harpers.org/sb-six-questions-kate-brown-1158926209.html

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies

I did it, so can you

2006-09-19T02:53:31Z

Go to http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer

Fill out the form, or have it filled out for you. Automatically sends to your representative. Done in minutes.
Do it now. This guy is working fast to cover his tracks and rewrite the laws. We don't have time to waste.

Shall we take responsibility for our country? Or continue letting him run amuck?

Also see the movie "Why We Fight"
Rent it or order it if you can. Apparently it also shows online at
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

Educate yourselves on the military industrial complex, how it is dangerously gaining uncontrollable power, why we destroy nations and commit mass murder, what are we really fighting for?
This is the best context / point of view I have seen in explaining our war on terrorism.

posted in impeach the monkey puppet! - 0 replies