Debating the Role of Third Parties in the U.S.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5

Jeremiah Wright's Sermon: Democrats Distancing Themselves from Truth

I can't say I disagree with anything Rev. Jeremiah Wright is saying in these quotes. Really the only thing I'm iffy about is the AIDS conspiracy. I don't know much about AIDS/HIV so I don't know if I'll every come to the same conclusion as Jeremiah Wright.
Obama and Clinton both have a history with this guy, but are both trying to politically distance their campaigns from him.

"It's as if we took the five dumbest things that I've ever said or you've ever said in our lives and compressed them and put them out there - I think that people's reaction would, understandably, be upset."^[14]
-Barack Obama, "ABC's Charles Gibson Talks to Barack Obama" ABC News March 28, 2008.

"..words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialog, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue."
-Barack Obama, "On my Faith and My Church" Huffington Post, March 14, 2008.

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church."
-Barack Obama, "Obama Would Have Left if Wright Stayed".Associated Press, March 28, 2008.

Barack Obama denounced the harshness of Wright's words — not because they were false, he said, but because they did not acknowledge the strides that the U.S. has made in the fight against racism. Obama said his own candidacy shows how far the country has come. (All Things Considered, March 18, 2008)

I think condemning the statements is a mistake, but then again, Democrats seem to be trying to cater to conservatives and do not want to seem too controversial. In my opinion, these topics are only controversial to people who do not study history and/or not directly affected by our government's military decisions. In other words, Democrats are catering to those who are quite possibly some of the most ignorant constituents:

Excerpts from Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermon (in context here):

"I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox News. This is a white man, and he was upsetting the Fox News commentators to no end. He pointed out — did you see him, John? — a white man, he pointed out, ambassador, that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Muhammad was in fact true — America's chickens are coming home to roost."

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and The Pentagon, and we never batted an eye... and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."

"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y'all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people that we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that."

"And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness."

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, as long as she pretends to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent."

“The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment. They purposely infected African American men with syphilis. Governments lie. The government lied about bombing Cambodia and Richard Nixon stood in front of the camera, ‘Let me make myself perfectly clear…’ Governments lie. The government lied about the drugs for arms Contra scheme orchestrated by Oliver North, and then the government pardoned all the perpetrators so they could get better jobs in the government. Governments lie. The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. Governments lie. The government lied about a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and a connection between 9.11.01 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Governments lie.”

Lincoln Chafee: 'Against the Tide' Toward the Center

Listen to the interview on Fresh Air

Excerpt: 'Against the Tide'

by Lincoln Chafee

NPR.org, April 16, 2008 · Early in December 2000, Senator Specter asked Richard Cheney, our Republican vice presidential candidate, to have lunch with us on Wednesday, December 13. The vote-counting fiasco in Florida was under way and no one knew whether Texas Governor George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore had been elected the nation's 43rd president. Then, the night before we were to meet with Mr. Cheney, the news broke: the U.S. Supreme Court had declared the Florida recount unconstitutional. The Court authorized Katharine Harris, Florida's Republican secretary of state, to declare Bush and Cheney victorious.

We Republicans had won the presidency by a single vote in the Electoral College and a single vote in the Supreme Court. In the executive branch, winning by a whisker is as good as winning in a landslide, but not so in the Senate. For the first time in a century we had a Senate split down the middle, 50-50, with a Republican vice president available to break a tie in our favor. That whisker-thin margin of victory had real consequences to my way of thinking.

It meant that our small club of five moderate Republican votes would be vital to President-elect Bush if he had any hope of getting his legislative initiatives through.

That was why Vice President-elect Richard Cheney came to our lunch that day: Not to say he needed us, but to tell us that he and George W. Bush were in charge and no one else.

In steady, quiet tones, the Vice President-elect laid out a shockingly divisive political agenda for the new Bush administration, glossing over nearly every pledge the Republican ticket had made to the American voter. President-elect Bush had promised that healing, but now we moderate Republicans were hearing Richard Cheney articulate the real agenda: A clashist approach on every issue, big and small, and any attempt at consensus would be a sign of weakness. We would seek confrontation on every front. He said nothing about education or the environment or health care; it was all about these new issues that were rarely, if ever, touted in the campaign. The new administration would divide Americans into red and blue, and divide nations into those who stand with us or against us. I knew that what the Vice President-elect was saying would rip the closely divided Congress apart. We moderates had often voted with President Clinton on things that powerful Republican constituencies didn't like: an increase in the minimum wage, a patients' bill of rights, and campaign finance reform. Mr. Cheney knew this, but he ticked off the issues at the top of his agenda and did it fearlessly. It made no difference to him that we were potential adversaries; he was going down his to-do list and checking off Confrontation Number 1.

Senator Arlen Specter spoke first. As the most junior member, I would have my say last, if at all. I could hardly sit still as I waited to hear my respected friend wade into this outrageous manifesto.

And then, in a moment I can only describe as infuriating, Senator Specter took no leadership role in representing the moderate point of view. He acquiesced, and others followed his example.

As each of my colleagues spoke in turn, I waited for one of them to push back. Surely one of them would have the presence of mind to say, Whoa! Time out! What are you talking about, Mister Vice President? You weren't elected to scrap international agreements. You never said to the voters: Elect us and we promise to bring back deficit spending and drive the next generation into debt.

But no one resisted. We sat there and listened as Mr. Cheney made divisive pronouncements of policy that would come as a complete surprise to many of the Americans who had voted to elect the Bush/Cheney ticket. I stopped waiting for someone to challenge Mr. Cheney when I saw my Republican friends around the table nodding in agreement as he held forth.

I was at a loss to explain my colleagues' compliant behavior then. I remain so now. It may have been an all-too-human response to the circumstances of the time. Anxious weeks of uncertainty were finally over. Now we knew the outcome of the election. The bitterness of the Florida recount was behind us. My colleagues seemed happy and relieved just to know who was in charge. And they seemed a little awestruck. This is the Vice President of the United States.

The contentious and destructive agenda that Mr. Cheney dropped on us was troubling enough, but what really unnerved me was his attitude. He welcomed conflict. We Republicans had promised America exactly the opposite. In the presidential debates, moderator Jim Lehrer asked Governor Bush to describe the foreign policy he would adopt, if elected. Candidate Bush said he would be humble in foreign affairs; that if we were arrogant, other countries would resent us. Now his running mate was telling us the new administration would make a point of being arrogant and divisive. Mr. Cheney was brazen in his pronouncements. A humble foreign policy? His attitude was anything but humble. He said that the campaign was over and that our actions in office would not be dictated by what had to be said in the campaign. And he pronounced this deception with no emotion or window dressing of any kind. He was fearless, matter of fact, and smug.

I wondered, where does Cheney get the confidence to say these things a few hours after the Court established him as our Vice President-elect? Where did he get the authority to make this radical departure from the President-elect's own campaign rhetoric?

I had supported Governor George W. Bush over Senator John McCain in the 2000 Rhode Island presidential primary. I met the Texas Governor for the first time in 1999, when he came to Rhode Island to raise money. I contributed and sincerely applauded his remarks to supporters at the Providence Convention Center. He had good campaign patter, and I was impressed. He said all the right things. I thought he could win on his pledge to bring a new, unifying atmosphere to Washington, and that he might even be as good and decent a president as his father had been. He seemed moderate enough to win support from all sides, and he had the Bush name. After the bitter partisan atmosphere of the Clinton impeachment, voters looked back with affection at the governor's father.

I liked that the governor had worked cooperatively with Democrats in the Texas Legislature. If leaders in both parties could rally around him, he was just what the country needed. America stood at the summit of power, emerging from the Cold War as an economic, cultural and military force without equal. We had wasted valuable years in partisan bickering, but our moment in history was still at hand. What a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to do good things in the world.

Then came that devastating first day after George W. Bush and Richard Cheney prevailed in the Supreme Court. If we were to believe Mr. Cheney, the President-elect would not only reignite the partisanship of the Clinton-Gingrich era but would make it even more toxic. Mr. Cheney tore our best campaign promises to shreds and the moderates acquiesced instead of pelting him with outrage. It was clear to me then that there would be no key bloc of moderate votes helping to shape legislation and reunite America over the next four years. In any event, Cheney was not asking for support – he was ordering us to provide it. The President-elect had his agenda; we were just along for the ride.

My heart sank as my colleagues peeled away, one by one. It was the most demoralizing moment of my seven-year tenure in the Senate.

When it was my turn to speak, I made the case that our five votes would be crucially important in a 50-50 Senate. I chose my words carefully, and probably stammered with the effort to contain my fury. We were on the cusp of a new millennium that held enormous promise for American leadership in the world, and what I had just heard was petty, arrogant and irresponsible. It threatened to lead in exactly the wrong direction.

I spoke in the perhaps too-optimistic hope that I might yet rally the moderates to seriously apprehend the implications of the new agenda. When I told Mr. Cheney, "Our votes at this table are important," he could hardly be bothered. He gave me the back of his hand with a truism: "Every vote is important."

There was no support to be had, and lunch was over.

Excerpted from Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President, by Lincoln Chafee, with permission from Thomas Dunne Books. Copyright (c) 2008 by Lincoln Chafee. All rights reserved.

American Blackout

Nader: Obama "stays on a very high plane of generality and abstraction"

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Ralph Nader, three-time presidential candidate. Will he make it four? He has just formed an exploratory committee to decide whether to run for president here in this year, 2008. Ralph Nader, the issue of running and taking away votes from the Democrats, take that on, something that has made many people very angry, feeling that you took the race from Al Gore at a time that was absolutely critical for this country.

RALPH NADER: Well, if you ask Al Gore, he’ll give you ten reasons, each of which independently was a cause of his losing. He believes he won—I agree he won—in Florida, but it was stolen from him before, during, and after the election by the Secretary of State and Jeb Bush, all the way from Tallahassee to that atrocious political decision by the Supreme Court. There are a lot of “what if’s,” Amy. What if he got Tennessee? What if he got Arkansas? What if the mayor of Florida didn’t go to Madrid and not bring out thousands of his votes?

Anybody who looks at an independent or third party candidate, whether it’s a Green Party candidate or Independent Party candidate, and uses the words "Are you taking away votes from the Democrats?” in my view, is basically saying that small party candidates are second-class citizens. Either we have an equal right to run for elective office in our country, or we are basically developing a two-tier system, where the two dominant parties, with all their commercial support, control the votes in this country. So either none of us are spoilers, because we have an equal right to run, or all of us, because we’re trying to take votes from one another, are spoilers. There’s no stratification. When that word “spoiler” is used to attach to a small party candidate, that, to me, is clear political bigotry, just as if it was used against a class of voters years ago during the pre-civil rights era. So I think ballot access is a major civil liberties issue, and people in this country, whether they like it or not, must recognize how discriminatory that word is and must try to adhere to what the polls tell us, that they really want more voices and choices and that about 60 percent of the people of this country want a viable third party, even though they may not vote for that party.

So we have to get over it, and liberals especially have got to get over their easy abdication of least-worst voting for the Democrats, where they don’t put any pressure or they don’t make any demands on the Democrats, because they fear that the Republicans are worse. That sets up a system where the corporations are pulling 24/7 the Democrats in their direction to become corporate Democrats, like the corporate Republicans, and no one is pulling the other way. Why? Because they’re all freaked out by the Republicans, and they’re going for least-worst voting. All the bargaining power of progressives and liberals atrophy with that attitude.

So if they don’t want to support a small party candidate, if they don’t want to go to our website, naderexplore08.org, and see the reasons in that remarkable letter by my supporters that’s on that website, see the reasons why we are testing the waters, then they at least have to make demands on the Democratic Party, which they did not make in ’00 against Gore and they did not make against John Kerry. In fact, they had a moratorium on demonstrations against the war in ’04.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, you, a while ago, said that if Hillary Clinton were the Democratic presidential nominee, you would run for president against her. What is your assessment of Barack Obama?

RALPH NADER: My assessment of Barack Obama is that he knows what the score is in terms of the male distribution of power. He knows what he has said in the past about the Israeli-Palestinian issue and the need for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution. He knows that this war was a criminal war in Iraq and we’ve got to get out of it in a responsible, expeditious manner. He knows that corporations have too much power over workers and consumers and small taxpayers and elections and the government.

But when you watch him, he stays at a very high plain of generality and abstraction about change, and we’re one nation, and we’re one people. And that may sing with the desire of people to feel like they’re part of a unity, but it doesn’t do much for the productivity of the political dialogue. He does not get specific enough. Therefore, I think his main problem is he’s censoring himself, and that is not sufficiently rationalized by saying that’s just a tactic to win the primaries and get elected. After awhile, day after day, week after week, when you self-censor yourself, you become a different person, and it’s a reflection on character.

I also think that if he didn’t self-censor himself, if he started reverberating to the many mainstream press reports on corporate crime, fraud and abuse against pensions, against workers, against small investors; on the labor laws that are obstructing workers from organizing; on the need to have a foreign policy that isn’t militaristic; on the need to have an efficient military budget, where he said he wants to enlarge and modernize the military, which is already absorbing half of the federal government’s operating expenditures; on the need to direct taxpayer money to the necessities of the American people and not to pour them into corporate subsidies, handouts, giveaways, bailouts, which we call corporate welfare; on the need to protect consumers, especially in the inner city, from the rapacious practices of lenders; etc., I think he would enormously advance the number of people who would support him. And he certainly has the intellect to do that.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think he has different positions than Hillary Clinton? And what is your assessment of her?

RALPH NADER: His declared positions almost fit the definition of protective imitation (nature or politics). They’re too close to Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a corporate Democrat. There’s no better evidence of that than the Fortune magazine cover story in June of last year, which basically said business loves Hillary. Hillary is a big business candidate.

And so, I think the healthcare proposal is a perfect example by Barack Obama of this protective imitation. Why doesn’t he go for full Medicare? Why doesn’t he go for a deeper analysis of the healthcare problem in this country, namely the need to emphasize prevention of disease and trauma, the need to knock out $220 billion of billing fraud and abuse, according to the Government Accountability Office and Malcolm Sparrow at Harvard University, against the need to reduce malpractice and stop blocking action to go to the courts for the tens of thousands of people who are injured or killed because of the small percentage of reckless doctors operating in this country who should have their license suspended? He should also focus on the enormous administrative expense savings from full Medicare—one payer, not 1,500 payers and cross-billings, etc., that are now taking about $300 billion to $400 billion.

Nader at Ten Percent in Michigan

For fully a month now, the national media has largely ignored the Nader/Gonzalez campaign.

And yet, when the people of Michigan were asked earlier this month if the choice in November were between McCain, Clinton or Nader, 46 percent said McCain, 37 percent said Clinton and fully 10 percent said Nader.

If the choice were between McCain, Obama and Nader, Obama pulled 43 percent, McCain 41 percent, and Nader 8 percent.

This reflects national polling. For example, a Fox poll last month showed that about one in seven voters - 14 percent - say they would "seriously consider" voting for Ralph Nader.

Given the virtually total corporate media blackout, this is a remarkable result.

And we are heartened by it.

For Clinton, Obama and McCain, ten percent might seem like peanuts.

But for Nader/Gonzalez, it shows we're on our way up.

It has been our contention all along that the corrupt two-party system cannot stand.

Perhaps we are now seeing the first cracks in the facade of the duopoly.

We have joined with you in a rebuilding project.

Rebuilding a people-powered democracy.

That will deliver single payer, Canadian style, private delivery, public health insurance.

That will cut the bloated, wasteful military budget.

That will reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East.

That will secure a living wage.

That will end the illegal war in Iraq.

Last month the Zogby poll put Ralph Nader at five to six percent nationwide.

This month, it's ten percent in Michigan.

Thanks to you, we have made great strides over the past few months.

But we see this as just a beginning.

Here is what we must do now.

We are very close to securing federal matching funds.

What does it mean to secure matching funds?

For every dollar you give up to $250 - and we thank you for each and every dollar - the federal government will match it.

But to secure matching funds, we must first collect $5,000 in matchable donations in each of at least 20 states.

We are almost there.

So, please, be as generous as you can be.

Give whatever you can now - to help push us over the top.

Together, we can make a difference.

Onward

The Nader Team

PS: We invite your comments to the blog.

Civics Quiz

I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
- Thomas Jefferson

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
- Abraham Lincoln

Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.
- Woodrow Wilson

The citizens of the United States must control the mighty commercial forces which they themselves called into being.
- Theodore Roosevelt

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
- Dwight Eisenhower

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves - and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.
- Thomas Jefferson

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Civics Quiz

Which of the following candidates for President of the United States best reflects values expressed above?

a) John McCain
b) Hillary Clinton
c) Barack Obama
d) Ralph Nader

The answer?

d) Ralph Nader
(voteNader.org)

Wal-Mart Candid Video Archives Available

(Wall Street Journal)
"For nearly 30 years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employed a video-production company," Flagler Productions Inc. "to capture footage of its top executives, sometimes in unguarded moments. Two years ago, the retailing giant stopped using the tiny company."

"In recent months, Flagler has opened its trove of some 15,000 Wal-Mart tapes to the outside world, with an eye toward selling clips. The material is proving irresistible to everyone from business historians and documentary filmmakers to plaintiffs lawyers and union organizers."

Among the revealing moments: A former executive vice president and board member challenges store managers in 2004 to continue his work opposing unionization. Male managers in drag lead thousands of co-workers in the company's corporate cheer. In another meeting, managers mock foolish or dangerous use of a product sold in its stores. In 1991, founder Sam Walton describes Hillary Clinton, then a Wal-Mart director, as "one of us."

The best part, maintains plaintiffs lawyer Gene P. Graham Jr., is that "Wal-Mart has no control over this stuff."

Wal-Mart isn't pleased. "It's difficult to understand how the company could now sell to third parties the material we paid it to produce on our behalf," says a Wal-Mart spokeswoman. "Needless to say, we did not pay Flagler Productions to tape internal meetings with this aftermarket in mind." She adds that the company is "reviewing our legal options."

In a Jan. 14 letter to Flagler, Marshall S. Ney, a lawyer for Wal-Mart, said the retailer has "claims to rights in the video library" and the film transcripts.





Huffington Post
http://walmartwatch.com/
http://wakeupwalmart.com/

Ralph Nader: "Once again, Pres. Jimmy Carter is to be commended for taking the initiative toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"

Once again, former President Jimmy Carter is to be commended for taking the initiative toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The announcement that he will meet next week in Damascus with Khaled Meshal, the leader of Hamas, is consonant with a March 1, 2008 poll by the leading Israeli newspaper - Haaretz - that found 64 percent of Israelis favor direct talks with Hamas. Only 28 percent were opposed. (Hamas was created years ago with the critical support of both the Israeli and U.S. governments as a counterweight to the Palestine Liberation Organization.)

An impressive number of retired top Israeli and American government officials have called for - or believe there should be - negotiations with Hamas, the organization which controls Gaza, presently under an Israeli siege.

Both United Nations and European Union officials have demanded that the Israeli government lift the siege or blockade which is severely depriving Palestinian civilian families of needed medicine, food, electricity, clean water, fuel and other critical life-saving supplies and materials. Gaza has become the world's largest prison with 1.5 million inmates - many sick or dying - making that tiny enclave a major humanitarian crisis that invites moral and political denunciation by world leaders.

In addition, during the hostilities over the past year, Palestinians have suffered at least 300 civilian casualties to every Israeli civilian casualty.

The major party Presidential candidates - McCain, most offensively for one who says he stands against individual and collective torture - and Clinton and Obama - distanced themselves from Carter's forthcoming initiative.

Nader

• Solving Palestinian-Israeli conflict would reduce terrorism. (Feb 2008)
• Palestinian statehood and security for Israel. (Sep 2002)

McCain

• Iran & Syria must not get nukes; they'll exterminate Israel. (Nov 2007)
• Palestine: Against declaration of statehood. (Feb 1999)

Obama

• Palestinian people suffer-but from not recognizing Israel. (Apr 2007)
• FactCheck: Palestinian suffering from stalled peace effort. (Apr 2007)
• Supports Israel's self-defense; but distrusted by Israelis. (Oct 2006)

Clinton

• Supports border security fence in Israel. (Oct 2006)
• Cut off US aid if Palestine declares a state unilaterally. (Oct 2000)
• Focuses on increasing relationship between US and Israel. (Oct 2000)
• Support Israel in finding a safe and secure peace. (May 2000)
• Extend peace treaties to Palestinians, Syrians & Lebanese. (Nov 1999)

(OnTheIssues.org)

McCain, renewing his fealty to Washington's Puppet Show, condemned Carter's move, while Clinton and Obama declared they disagreed with Carter.

It is time for all retired military, diplomatic and national security officials from both parties who agree with Carter - and there are many - to band together and launch the Washington Peace Show leading to what a majority of Palestinians and Israelis want - a viable two-state solution.

It is remarkable that the Republican and Democratic candidates for President of the United States stand in opposition to 64 percent of Israeli public opinion - and in opposition to leading former Israeli intelligence chiefs and foreign ministers - who want negotiations with Hamas.

If you agree with the Nader/Gonzalez platform of reversing U.S. policy in the Middle East, please vote now with your donation to our campaign.

Thank you for your ongoing and generous support.

Onward

-Ralph Nader

The "Wedge" Strategy

(Wikipedia)
"The strategy was put forth in a Discovery Institute manifesto known as the Wedge Document, which describes a broad social, political, and academic agenda whose ultimate goal is to "defeat [scientific] materialism" represented by evolution, "reverse the stifling materialist world view and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions" and to "affirm the reality of God."

The Discovery Institute is a think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design and its Teach the Controversy campaign to teach creationist anti-evolution beliefs in United States public high school science courses. A federal court, along with the majority of scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, say the Institute has manufactured the controversy they want to teach by promoting a false perception that evolution is "a theory in crisis," through incorrectly claiming that it is the subject of wide controversy and debate within the scientific community. A federal court recently ruled that the Discovery Institute pursues "demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions.."

The Bloated, Wasteful U.S. Military Budget

These figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the “Analytical Perspectives” book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009. The figures are federal funds, which do not include trust funds — such as Social Security — that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don’t pay) by April 15, 2008, goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining trust and federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller.

The pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. For a more accurate representation of how your Federal income tax dollar is really spent, see the large chart (top).

(from War Resisters League)

Current Military
$965 billion:
• Military Personnel $129 billion
• Operation & Maint. $241 billion
• Procurement $143 billion
• Research & Dev. $79 billion
• Construction $15 billion
• Family Housing $3 billion
• DoD misc. $4 billion
• Retired Pay $70 billion
• DoE nuclear weapons $17 billion
• NASA (50%) $9 billion
• International Security $9 billion
• Homeland Secur. (military) $35 billion
• State Dept. (partial) $6 billion
• other military (non-DoD) $5 billion
• “Global War on Terror” $200 billion [We added $162 billion to the last item to supplement the Budget’s grossly underestimated $38 billion in “allowances” to be spent in 2009 for the “War on Terror,” which includes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan]

Past Military,
$484 billion:
• Veterans’ Benefits $94 billion
• Interest on national debt (80%) created by military spending, $390 billion

Human Resources
$789 billion:
• Health/Human Services
• Soc. Sec. Administration
• Education Dept.
• Food/Nutrition programs
• Housing & Urban Dev.
• Labor Dept.
• other human resources.

General Government
$304 billion:
• Interest on debt (20%)
• Treasury
• Government personnel
• Justice Dept.
• State Dept.
• Homeland Security (15%)
• International Affairs
• NASA (50%)
• Judicial
• Legislative
• other general govt.

Physical Resources
$117 billion:
• Agriculture
• Interior
• Transportation
• Homeland Security (15%)
• HUD
• Commerce
• Energy (non-military)
• Environmental Protection
• Nat. Science Fdtn.
• Army Corps Engineers
� Fed. Comm. Commission
• other physical resources

U.S. Health Care

Michael Moore's "Sicko" (Now you have no excuse)

Good Movie, Now Where's the Movement?
Sicko and the Politics of Health Care - Ralph Nader, June 2007

Ralph Nader's stance on Health Care (ontheissues.org)

#For single-payer; all major candidates oppose it. (Feb 2008)
#Billing fraud and abuse costs $200B. (Feb 2008)
#Single-payer health care plan over for-profit care. (Feb 2008)
Single-payer health care, Canadian-style system

Hillary Clintons stance on Health Care

# Bottom line is cost; mine is more affordable than Obama's. (Feb 2008)
# Obama's plan includes mandate on 150 million parents. (Feb 2008)
# Taxpayers pay for drug R&D, not drug companies. (Jan 2008)
# My health care program will cover everyone. (Jan 2008)
# Need a health care system that manages chronic diseases. (Jan 2008)
# Universal health care is a core Democratic principle. (Jan 2008)
1993 Clinton Health Care Plan... also see HMO

Barack Obama

# Hillary's plan must either be enforced, or leave out people. (Feb 2008)
# The problem with health care is about affordability. (Jan 2008)
# Subsidies to people who can't afford care--not single payer. (Jan 2008)
# Bring GOP & Dems together to make haelthcare affordable. (Jan 2008)

McCain

# Harness market competition for comprehensive reform. (Feb 2008)
# Preserve quality of health care by individual responsibility. (Dec 2007)
# Give individuals $2500 refundable tax credits for healthcare. (Oct 2007)
# Control health costs so manufacturers stay competitive. (Oct 2007)
# No mandated universal system; no mandated insurance coverage. (Jun 2006)
# We should be able to reimport drugs from Canada. (Jan 2006)

The Insane Cost of U.S. Health Care (everything2)

What Every American Should Know About the Middle East

originally from DMIESSLER.com

Basics

1. Arabs are part of an ethnic group, not a religion. Arabs were around long before Islam, and there have been (and still are) Arab Christians and Arab Jews. In general, you’re an Arab if you 1) are of Arab descent (blood), or 2) speak the main Arab language (Arabic).

2. Not all Arabs are Muslim. There are significant populations of Arab Christians throughout the world, including in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Northern Africa and Palestine/Israel.

3. Islam is a religion. A Muslim (roughly pronounced MOOSE-lihm) is someone who follows the religion. So you wouldn’t say someone follows Muslim or is an Islam, just as you wouldn’t say someone follows Christian or is a Christianity.

4. Shia Muslims are similar to Roman Catholics in Christianity. They have a strong clerical presence via Imams and promote the idea of going through them to practice the religion correctly. Sunni Muslims are more like Protestant Christians. They don’t really focus on Imams and believe in maintaining a more direct line to God than the Shia.

5. People from Iran are also known as Persians, and they are not Arabs.

6. Arabs are Semites. We’ve all heard the term antisemitism being used — often to describe Arabs. This doesn’t make sense given the fact that the word “Semite” comes from the Bible and refers to anyone who speaks one of the Semitic Languages. That includes both Jews and Arabs.

7. According to the Bible, Jews and Arabs are related [Genesis 25]. Jews descended from Abraham’s son Isaac, and Arabs descended from Abraham’s son Ishmael. So not only are both groups Semitic, but they’re also family.

8. Sunni Muslims make up most of the Muslim world (roughly 90%). 1

9. The country with the world’s largest Muslim population is Indonesia. 2

10. The rift between the Shia and Sunni started right after Muhammad’s death and originally reduced to a power struggle regarding who was going to become the authoritative group for continuing the faith.

The Shia believed Muhammad’s second cousin Ali should have taken over (the family/cleric model). The Sunni believed that the best person for the job should be chosen by the followers (the merit model) and that’s how the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, was appointed.

Although the conflict began as a political struggle it now mostly considered a religious and class conflict, with political conflict emanating from those rifts.


Here’s how the various Middle Eastern countries break down in terms of Sunni vs. Shia and whether or not they are predominantly Arab. Keep in mind that these are generalizations; significant diversity exists in many of the countries listed.

* Iraq Mostly Shia (roughly 60%), but under Saddam the Shia were oppressed and the Sunni were in power despite being only 20% of the population. Arab.

* Iran Shia. NOT Arab.

* Palestine Sunni. Arab.

* Egypt Sunni. Arab.

* Saudi Arabia Sunni. Arab.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

* Syria Sunni. Arab.

* Jordan Sunni. Arab.

* Gulf States Sunni. Arab.

Truth about Social Networking

Facebook: Federal Human Data Mining Program
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwnTWZ1-UWY


It's laid out here. We know one of the big neoconservative operatives, Rupert Murdoch, has control over Myspace. Watch Billy Moyers lay out his recent purchase of the Wall Street Journal
Now we know CIA operatives have access to all of the information on Facebook. Using all of that data, they can control future trends and interests, even label future "counter" cultures, as well as control political discourse by laying out all of the issues nonpolitical people care about.

Also note this article:
AT&T Invents Mass Data Mining Language http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/10/att-invents-pro.html They've been monitoring even physical movement trends based on cell phone usage since 2001. In a "worst case scenario," they could potentially use combinations of information to jail and prosecute political prisoners like former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/21/60minutes/main3859830.shtml

Mayor Funkhouser: Historical Figure of Kansas City

"For years we have relied on accounting tricks to balance our budget, instead of making strategic choices and crafting budgets that reflect our values," he said. "The result is that important services – services approved by the Mayor and Council – often get shortchanged. These cuts are technically off the books, but they are very real to people who depend on city government to make their communities livable." Mayor Mark Funkhouser -(article)

Another good quote from the Mayor, March 7, 2008 Kansas City Business Journal:
'Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser suggested Thursday that using Union Station as the center for a light-rail system could support the landmark without new taxes.

Funkhouser doesn't back a suggestion to raise property taxes to help finance the station, he said in a release.

"By making Union Station the hub of a regional light-rail system, the grand building will reclaim its significance to the Kansas City region and enjoy a steady stream of people through its arched doorways," he said in the release.

In addition to making the station financially viable, the use would be a fitting tribute to the history of what was the nation's second-busiest railroad station, Funkhouser said in the release, adding that he was pleased with the progress station officials have made toward fiscal solvency.'

'Mayor Funkhouser believes the City Council should make strategic changes to the budget to protect the services that are most important to Kansas Citians, which he described as "streets, codes, cops and kids." -(article)

Some news for Clinton supporters:

..she's broken her own party's rules,
refused to disclose her tax returns before the majority of the primaries and caucus',
cries on cue before caucus' and primaries,
has taken untrue cheap shot after racial cheap shot at Obama,
flip-flopped throughout her career on things like the war, the economy, and health care,
destroyed jobs in her own state
and obviously can't read simple statistics with regards to gun control and immigration

Election Season

What's been pulled off the table by the corporatized political machines in this momentous election year?

Answer:

-Cutting the huge, bloated and wasteful military budget,
-adopting a single payer Canadian-style national health insurance system,
-impeaching Bush/Cheney,
-opposing nuclear power - among many others.


What candidate, if any, would address these issues?
Post with your opinion and provide references if you have them. Thanks!
Watch NBC Sunday Feb 24th at 8am