Shlonkombakazay.blogspot.com

Shekoo Shmakoo? Shinu hal tar'baga? Shinu hal ulooj ya mah'flooj?

History and Politics Out Loud

is a searchable multimedia database documenting and delivering authoritative audio relevant to American history and politics.

Iraq Index

Is a statistical compilation of economic, public opinion, and security data. This resource will provide updated information on various criteria, including crime, telephone and water service, troop fatalities, unemployment, Iraqi security forces, oil production, and coalition troop strength. The index is designed to quantify the rebuilding efforts and offer an objective set of criteria for benchmarking performance. It is the first in-depth, non-partisan assessment of American efforts in Iraq, and is based primarily on U.S. government information. Although measurements of progress in any nation-building effort can never be reduced to purely quantitative data, a comprehensive compilation of such information can provide a clearer picture and contribute to a healthier and better informed debate.

Michael O'Hanlon spearheads the Iraq Index project at Brookings, with assistance from Research Assistant Nina Kamp. O'Hanlon is a Foreign Policy Studies senior fellow and served on a U.S. government delegation to Iraq to review post-war progress.

WarInContext.org

The War in Context rides on one of the subtler and less-noted democratizing forces spawned by the Web; it allows background to become foreground. While the voices heard here are primarily those of the full-time hacks who report the news or get paid for talking about it, they have been unleashed from the control of timid editors who frequently bury these stories or opinions deep on the inside pages.

Balance and counterbalance"Balanced reporting" is one of the sacred cows of American journalism. The War in Context makes no claim to provide balance. On the contrary, its purpose is to provide counterbalance. When George Bush launched his "war on terrorism," he had no trouble enlisting uncritical support from almost every editorial desk in America. In response to this imbalance, The War in Context (along with various other dissenting outlets inside and outside the U.S.) challenges the Bush administration:-- by refusing to accept the assertion that "you are either with us or against us in the fight against terror"-- by refusing to accept the claim that the motives of the 9-11 terrorists can be explained by simply saying that "they hate our freedom"-- by challenging the belief that war can eradicate terrorism.

Haiti Massacre

5000 soccer fans in Haiti witness machete and hatchet massacre by police and the new death squads

by Tom Luce with AUMOHD investigators

Dredging up fearsome memories of days thought to have gone by forever, eyewitnesses here in Port-Au-Prince have portrayed an unbelievable massacre-by-machete/hatchet rampage by red-shirted killers, backed up by the Haitian National Police (PNH), of up to 50 victims on Aug. 21 at a soccer field in Gran Ravin-Martissant. This summary, extra-legal execution follows similar type massacres in Bel Air and Solino earlier this month. This time the killings were done in plain daylight in front of and involving 5000 soccer fans, an incredibly bold assault by Haitian police and their civilian accomplices in the presence of troops from MINUSTAH. As has been the case this entire past year, the "targets" in Saturday's massacre, were all identified as "bandits", "Lavalas" scum (Rat pa caca).

Eyewitnesses described to a group of human rights agents today this super t.v. drama styled event. As fans were being entertained during one of the breaks in the soccer game--highly attended because national league players had joined the local teams--a group of police and men wearing red tee shirts and head bands entered the playing field and took over the microphone from the announcer. The people in the crowd at first thought that this was a friendly show of security by the police. But that idea was immediately dashed when the red shirt announcer stopped the music being played by the DJ and then demanded everyone to lay on the ground. A shot was fired into the air and people began a panicked response. Some tried to run away, some tried scaling the walls to escape and several of these were shot. Others tried running into the adjoining rooms of the stadium and later were found hacked to death. The red shirts, backed up by the police began demanding specific individuals lying on the ground if they were affiliated with Aristide, asking for confirmation from others whether these people were "bandits". Then without mercy these red shirts either hacked their victims to death or hacked them and then had their victims shot by the police. According to eyewitnesses and the family members of the victims interviewed today, the victims of the executioners were innocent people and were attacked only because they were allegedly Lavalas supporters.

More Hugo

What to do about Hugo?

Two fingers to America

Venezuela, Cuba offer free health care to Latin American, Caribbean citizens

Aló Presidente, February 2005

"Don't Make Any Mistake Mr. Bush..."

Hugo Chavez to Bush, Video, English

More Hugo Chavez and Venezuela

http://www.venezuelatoday.net/
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http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/
The Hands Off Venezuela website was cracked the morning of August 17.
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http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/

Pat Robertson, Viewed By Venezuela's Bloggers

‘Christian’ televangelist Pat Robertson generated unprecedented headlines about Hugo Chavez in the blogosphere and in the U.S. media Tuesday when he publicly called for the assassination of the Venezuelan dictator.

Technorati listed it as its top search on the blogosphere.

Google listed it as its top story worldwide in all categories and ran it as its first banner story above a fatal Peruvian jetliner crash.

Bloomberg did five updates on this ’stop the presses’ news item before beginning more coverage here.

CNN did a special report.

Wikipedia was flooded with inquiries about who Hugo Chavez is.

It was the biggest single Internet traffic day for Venezuela of the year, in some cases topping even the recent plane crash last week and last year’s recall referendum. The degree of U.S. fascination with the topic was unprecedented. It was almost tabloidy, given that both Robertson and Chavez specialize in lengthy television demagoguery and pop off about various things quite explosively.

But in Venezuela, the reaction was a bit different. Hugo Chavez, speaking from Havana on his way home to Caracas, said he’d never heard of this person, Robertson, and he didn’t seem to want to dignify Robertson’s recommendations with a comment. Venezuela’s newspapers (I monitored them all day) had virtually nothing at all mentioning the Robertson incident until the end of the day, when the flood of news from the states seemed to get their attention.

Venezuela’s bloggers all reluctantly addressed the issue, but from their side all had something interesting to say.

Here is the view of Pat Robertson who urged the assasination of Hugo Chavez, from Venezuela’s bloggers:

VenezuelaToday reported that the story generated the most traffic of the year and was likely to endanger Americans still working in Venezuela.

Miguel Octavio cites a string of Robertson’s other absurd and stupid statements, roundly thwacking the guy. He compares Robertson’s and Chavez’s statements on nukes, lesbians, the State Department, religion, and other matters and finds both men wanting - but remarkably alike. He concludes that in a spirit of mutual cooperation, they both take a stretch in the slammer. Miguel also notes with satisfaction, via Instapundit and Little Green Footballs, that Robertson himself was an original inspiration for the concept of ‘idiotarian.’

Daniel Duquenal examines the debacle from the preacherman and talk show host angle and notes that Chavez and Robertson are mirror images as demagogues. He cites Robertson’s fervent wish awhile back that hurricanes hit Florida because Disneyland granted domestic partner benefits to its gay employees. That was the year the hurricane he was talking about turned around and whomped him over in Virginia. Daniel says that pretty much everyone in Venezuela is disgusted by the Robertson call and as for himself, he’d like to see Chavez alive and on trial and answering for all of his misdeeds, not dead.

Alek Boyd from London writes that there is one place where Robertson’s ilk can be securely found where he’s at - the Speaker’s corner in London where all the derelict lunatics and losers and unemployables go to stand on their soapbox. He compares Robertson to London’s Islamofascists and notes that this incident will go down in the pantheon of Chavistadom as just one of many - a la Castro - assassination attempts on the life of the dictator.

Bandera Negra (en espanol) writes that Robertson asks for the head of the ‘Goriloro’ (their name for Chavez because he is part parrot and part gorilla, an apt description), saying that Robertson was popping off what everyone else was privately thinking. Bandera provocatively ends the post in a mysterious ‘bang.’

El Liberal Venezolano (’Liberal’ means ‘libertarian’ to us gringos) reminds ‘Good Samaritan’ Pat of things like the 10 Commandments and other religious teachings that the unseemly preacher seems to have forgotten.

Gustavo Coronel, in an essay written just hours before Robertson’s pop-off, discusses more soberly the real reasons why Hugo Chavez must be dislodged from power. He doesn’t suggest assassination, however.

by A.M. Mora y Leon

Greg Palast, Hugo Chavez, July 1, 2003

From the Project Censored award winning dispatches from Venezuela

Last June, on Page One of the San Francisco Chronicle, an Associated Press photo of a mass of demonstrators carried the following caption:
"TENS OF THOUSANDS OF VENEZUELANS OPPOSED TO PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ..."

The caption let us know this South American potentate was a killer, an autocrat, and the people of his nation wanted him out. The caption continued: "[Venezuelans] marched Saturday to demand his resignation and punishment for those responsible for 17 deaths during a coup in April. 'Chavez leave now!' read a huge banner." There was no actual story in the Chronicle – South America simply isn't worth wasting words on – just the photo and caption. But the Chronicle knew no story was needed. Venezuelans hated their terrible president, and all you needed was this photo to prove it.

And I could confirm the large protests. I'd recently returned from Caracas and watched 100,000 march against President Chavez. I'd filmed them for BBC Television London.

But I also filmed this: a larger march, easily over 200,000 Venezuelans marching in support of their president, Chavez.

That picture, of the larger pro-Chavez march, did not appear in a single U.S. newspaper. The pro-Chavez marchers weren't worth a mention.

By the next month, when the New York Times printed a photo of anti-Chavez marchers, they had metastasized. The Times reported that 600,000 had protested against Chavez.

Once again, the larger pro-Chavez demonstrations were, as they say in Latin America, "disappeared." I guess they didn't fit the print.

Rumsfeld visits Paraguay and Peru

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Paraguay and Peru earlier this month in an attempt to reverse a cycle of instability in the Andean states.

By Dr. Michael A. Weinstein for PINR (24/08/05)

In an attempt to reverse the cycle of instability that has erupted in the Andean states of South America and that continues to intensify, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Paraguay and Peru on 16-18 August.

The pressing reason for Rumsfeld's trip is the deterioration - from Washington's viewpoint - of the political situation in Bolivia, where President Carlos Mesa resigned earlier in the summer after the country was torn apart by autonomy movements in its relatively prosperous south and mass populist direct action in its poverty stricken north. Washington's primary concern is the escalating support for Evo Morales, the charismatic leader whose base among the
northern coca growers has widened to include significant portions of Bolivia's indigenous majority and whose Movement Toward Socialism, which falls in line with the cooperativist ideology of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, commands the most significant bloc in the
Bolivian Congress.

Washington, which has accused Caracas and Havana of lending support to Morales, fears that populist movements opposed to its strategic aims now have a genuine chance to come to power in the Andean states and institute socialist economic models in place of neo-liberal
capitalist free trade, thereby excluding US influence in the region.

Although Bolivia is the proximate threat, Peru and Ecuador are also experiencing increasing instability from populist pressures. In Peru, three coca-growing regions have passed ordinances permitting free cultivation of the crop, and, in Ecuador, protestors in the country's oil-rich Amazon region have occupied petroleum facilities - cutting off the flow of crude oil - to advance their demands that transnational oil companies increase their spending on infrastructure improvements and social programs.

The overriding aim of Rumsfeld's trip to Paraguay and Peru, where he met with the countries' presidents and defense officials, was to persuade them to increase military cooperation with Washington and to create a coalition geared to isolating Caracas in the hemisphere.

Subsidiary goals were to encourage Asuncion's crackdown on smuggling, the drug trade and financial support for Middle Eastern Islamist groups operating in Paraguay's region bordering Brazil and Argentina, and to bolster Lima's commitment to curb coca production for export.

The present strategic importance of Paraguay and Peru for Washington is enhanced by the fact that they border Bolivia.

Rumsfeld's attempt at military diplomacy represents a shift in Washington's policy toward Caracas that had been restrained after Chavez survived a US-supported coup in 2002. Despite deteriorating relations between Washington and Caracas - evidenced by Chavez's
suspension of military and drug enforcement cooperation with the US - the policy of restraint might have continued had it not been for Andean instability. Already stymied in its efforts to create a hemispheric trading bloc dominated by the US, Washington now faces
the possibility of more hostile regimes in the hemisphere.

Winning the Oil Endgame, by Fareed Zakaria

Khaleej Times

Latin America: After two decades of political and economic progress in Latin America, we are watching a serious anti-American movement gain ground. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela — emboldened by his rising oil wealth — was the first in recent years to rebel against American influence, but similar sentiments are beginning to be heard in other countries, from Ecuador to Bolivia.

I could go on, from Central Asia to Nigeria. In almost every region, efforts to produce a more stable, peaceful and open world order are being compromised and complicated by high oil prices. And while America spends enormous time, money and effort dealing with the symptoms of this problem, we are actively fuelling the cause.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Chavez The Film, 2003

Chavez, Castro lash out at Bush

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez criticized the United States for recent remarks about his role in Latin America, saying in a Sunday broadcast from Cuba that it is the policies of the U.S. government that are harming the world, not his own.

Chavez spoke alongside Cuban President Fidel Castro during his weekly television and radio show from the western tip of the island, flaunting the close ties between the two leftist leaders that U.S. officials say are threatening democracy in the region.

"The grand destroyer of the world, and the greatest threat ... is represented by U.S. imperialism," Chavez said. "If the world continues on the road being imposed by imperialism, the world will head straight for destruction."

Chavez was responding to remarks U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made on his way home from visits to Paraguay and Peru last week. Referring to social uprisings in Bolivia that have pushed out two presidents in less than two years, Rumsfeld told reporters that Venezuela and Cuba have been influencing the Andean nation "in unhelpful ways."

Out To Lunch

I'm doing an experiment.

Back next week sometime.

People killed because of the war started by the United States

*click*

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Behind the Homefront

A daily chronicle of news in homeland security and military operations affecting newsgathering, access to information and the public's right to know.

Anti-Masonic Party

The first "third party" on the American national political scene. It was a reaction to the supposed Masonic threat to public institutions. Although secret societies in general were frowned upon by early 19th century Americans, the Freemasons long continued exempt from criticism perhaps because George Washington and other statesmen and soldiers of the Revolutionary period had been Masons. Indeed, in the first quarter of the 19th century membership is a Masonic lodge was almost a necessity for political preferment.

In 1826, general approval of Masonry suffered a sudden, dramatic reversal as a result of the mysterious disappearance in western New York of William Morgan, a Mason known to be on the point of publishing an exposé of his order's secrets. It was popularly believed, although never proved, that fellow Masons had murdered Morgan. Masonry in New York received a nearly mortal blow, membership dwindling in the decade 1826[en_dash]1836 from 20,000 to 3,000.

The Anti-Masonic Party, formed in New York in 1828, reflected the widespread hostility toward Masons holding public office. Thurlow Weed in 1828 established in Rochester, N.Y., his Anti-Masonic Enquirer and two years later obtained financial backing for his Albany Evening Journal, which became the chief party organ. There was a rapid proliferation of anti-Masonic papers, especially in the Eastern states. By 1832 there were 46 in New York and 55 in Pennsylvania.

The Anti-Masonic Party was the first party to hold a nominating convention and the first to announce a platform. On Sept. 26, 1831, convening in Baltimore, it nominated William Wirt of Maryland for the presidency and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania for the vice presidency. The political effect of the entrane, for the first time, of a third party into a United States presidential election was to draw support from Henry Clay and to help President Andrew Jackson (who was a Mason) win reelection by a wide margin. Vermont gave the party seven electoral votes and elected an Anti-Masonic governor, William A. Palmer. The party also gained members in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Ohio.

After the elections of 1836, however, the Anti-Masonic party declined. Together with the National Republican Party, it eventually was absorbed into the new Whig Party.

It is not only Iraq that is occupied. America is too

My country is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suits

Howard Zinn
Friday August 12, 2005
The Guardian

It has quickly become clear that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country. We became familiar with that term during the second world war. We talked of German-occupied France, German-occupied Europe. And after the war we spoke of Soviet-occupied Hungary, Czechoslovakia, eastern Europe. It was the Nazis, the Soviets, who occupied countries. The United States liberated them from occupation.

Now we are the occupiers. True, we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, but not from us. Just as in 1898 we liberated Cuba from Spain, but not from us. Spanish tyranny was overthrown, but the US established a military base in Cuba, as we are doing in Iraq. US corporations moved into Cuba, just as Bechtel and Halliburton and the oil corporations are moving into Iraq. The US framed and imposed, with support from local accomplices, the constitution that would govern Cuba, just as it has drawn up, with help from local political groups, a constitution for Iraq. Not a liberation. An occupation.

And it is an ugly occupation. On August 7 2003 the New York Times reported that General Sanchez in Baghdad was worried about the Iraqi reaction to occupation. Pro-US Iraqi leaders were giving him a message, as he put it: "When you take a father in front of his family and put a bag over his head and put him on the ground, you have had a significant adverse effect on his dignity and respect in the eyes of his family." (That's very perceptive.)

We know that fighting during the US offensive in November 2004 destroyed three-quarters of the town of Falluja (population 360,000), killing hundreds of its inhabitants. The objective of the operation was to cleanse the town of the terrorist bands acting as part of a "Ba'athist conspiracy".

But we should recall that on June 16 2003, barely six weeks after President Bush had claimed victory in Iraq, two reporters for the Knight Ridder newspaper group wrote this about the Falluja area: "In dozens of interviews during the past five days, most residents across the area said there was no Ba'athist or Sunni conspiracy against US soldiers, there were only people ready to fight because their relatives had been hurt or killed, or they themselves had been humiliated by home searches and road stops ... One woman said, after her husband was taken from their home because of empty wooden crates which they had bought for firewood, that the US is guilty of terrorism."

Soldiers who are set down in a country where they were told they would be welcomed as liberators and find they are surrounded by a hostile population become fearful and trigger-happy. On March 4 nervous, frightened GIs manning a roadblock fired on the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, just released by kidnappers, and an intelligence service officer, Nicola Calipari, whom they killed.

We have all read reports of US soldiers angry at being kept in Iraq. Such sentiments are becoming known to the US public, as are the feelings of many deserters who are refusing to return to Iraq after home leave. In May 2003 a Gallup poll reported that only 13% of the US public thought the war was going badly. According to a poll published by the New York Times and CBS News on June 17, 51% now think the US should not have invaded Iraq or become involved in the war. Some 59% disapprove of Bush's handling of the situation.

But more ominous, perhaps, than the occupation of Iraq is the occupation of the US. I wake up in the morning, read the newspaper, and feel that we are an occupied country, that some alien group has taken over. I wake up thinking: the US is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suits who care nothing about human life abroad or here, who care nothing about freedom abroad or here, who care nothing about what happens to the earth, the water or the air, or what kind of world will be inherited by our children and grandchildren.

More Americans are beginning to feel, like the soldiers in Iraq, that something is terribly wrong. More and more every day the lies are being exposed. And then there is the largest lie, that everything the US does is to be pardoned because we are engaged in a "war on terrorism", ignoring the fact that war is itself terrorism, that barging into homes and taking away people and subjecting them to torture is terrorism, that invading and bombing other countries does not give us more security but less.

The Bush administration, unable to capture the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks, invaded Afghanistan, killing thousands of people and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. Yet it still does not know where the criminals are. Not knowing what weapons Saddam Hussein was hiding, it invaded and bombed Iraq in March 2003, disregarding the UN, killing thousands of civilians and soldiers and terrorising the population; and not knowing who was and was not a terrorist, the US government confined hundreds of people in Guantánamo under such conditions that 18 have tried to commit suicide.

The Amnesty International Report 2005 notes: "Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times ... When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity".

The "war on terrorism" is not only a war on innocent people in other countries; it is a war on the people of the US: on our liberties, on our standard of living. The country's wealth is being stolen from the people and handed over to the super-rich. The lives of the young are being stolen.

The Iraq war will undoubtedly claim many more victims, not only abroad but also on US territory. The Bush administration maintains that, unlike the Vietnam war, this conflict is not causing many casualties. True enough, fewer than 2,000 service men and women have lost their lives in the fighting. But when the war finally ends, the number of its indirect victims, through disease or mental disorders, will increase steadily. After the Vietnam war, veterans reported congenital malformations in their children, caused by Agent Orange.

Officially there were only a few hundred losses in the Gulf war of 1991, but the US Gulf War Veterans Association has reported 8,000 deaths in the past 10 years. Some 200,000 veterans, out of 600,000 who took part, have registered a range of complaints due to the weapons and munitions used in combat. We have yet to see the long-term effects of depleted uranium on those currently stationed in Iraq.

Our faith is that human beings only support violence and terror when they have been lied to. And when they learn the truth, as happened in the course of the Vietnam war, they will turn against the government. We have the support of the rest of the world. The US cannot indefinitely ignore the 10 million people who protested around the world on February 15 2003.

There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.

· Howard Zinn is professor emeritus of political science at Boston University; his books include A People's History of the United States

© Le Monde diplomatique
A version of this article appears in the August issue of Le Monde diplomatique's English language edition Mondediplo.com

Christopher Walken for President 2008

August 9, 2005

Actor Christopher Walken to run as Candidate in 2008 Presidential Race For Immediate Release

New York - Early today, actor Christopher Walken, 62, held a private conference at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York in which he announced his intentions to run for the Presidency of the United States in the 2008 Election. Said the Queens native, “I have always been a follower of politics. My father was friends with the mayor of Schodack (NY) back in the 1940’s. We would walk the streets of Schodack and the people, they would wave to him. The children adored him. That is what I love to be, a man of respect and love.”

From a statement by Walken's agent, Toni Howard: “Mr. Walken has greatly admired the celebrities who have entered politics and he wants to be able to give a good name and reputation to the acting community as well as the political community. As for going national with this news we have not made any plans for the immediate future." Because Mr. Walken is currently contracted for more than one film production, the Walken campaign manager Michael Hansee admitted that there would be relatively minimal publicity at this early stage. "[Mr. Walken] has a full plate right now, acting in a number of different films, and can't start any personal campaign work until these obligations are fulfilled," he commented.

"We're looking to spread the word and build a little support base with our site, in preparation for a full campaign in early 2007."

The campaign website is patriotic-themed, with the tag-line "To Get America Back on Track." Hansee stated that the campaign is hoping to drum up early support through their online presence, much as Howard Dean did in the 2004 race.

http://www.walken2008.com

http://www.walkenforpres.com/

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"Our great country is in a terrible downward spiral. We're losing jobs, losing benefits, and losing lives. We need to focus on what's important-- paying attention to our children, our environment, our future. We need to think about improving our underbudget educational system, making better use of our resources, and helping to build a stable, safe, and tolerant global society. It's time to be smart about our politics. It's time to get America back on track."

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The Walken Platform
These are the issues that need solutions now, and Christopher Walken is not afraid to address them. He wants his supporters and opponents to know that he is clear in his ideals and will fight to lead America to a better place.

Campaign Finance Reform:
"I believe that campaign finance is a very tough issue, with good points on both sides; but I feel, as a wealthy american, that I should have no more say than even the least fortunate American citizen. That is why I am for campaign finance reform."

Military Funding:
"I am a huge supporter of the military. I have always thought of them as our guardians, and when our guardians are making less than the poverty line, and children are suffering because their parents decided to join the military, well, I get very upset. I feel that instead of sending billions to the Pentagon's pet projects, it should go to the troops."

Stem Cell Research:
"I'd met Chris Reeve several times before he died, and after having met him it is tough to be against it [stem cell research]. I am for human knowledge and expansion of human life. If stem cells are one way to do that, I need to be a good friend of stem cells."
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We're getting started early, and you can help!

If you're hoping for a new leader with confidence, intelligence, and diverse experience, here he is. Join our 'Spread the Word' campaign and let your friends, family, peers, and coworkers know that they can make a difference. Forget the run-of-the-mill special-interest bureaucrats from capitol hill and cast your vote for a man who answers to no one but the people. With your help, we can kick-start the Walken campaign before his opponents have their boots on.

3pc.net

Let's face it, the Democrats and the Republicans are old news. At this point they just assume that we'll vote for them. They don't really care any more what we think, they just want our votes. They've been in control of the system for so long that they feel no pressure to perform beyond our lamest expectations, or even to tell the truth. We say, let's give 'em the boot.

Here you will find information about the "third-party movement" in American politics. The premise is that eventually the current dominant parties will either shrink, or fracture, and in their place Americans will have many major parties to choose from, each filling a different niche in a broad political spectrum.

Our purpose is to raise public awareness of your political alternatives, and to encourage participation in the democratic process.

The Third Party of America

Our Mission

* Create a viable alternative to the two major political parties by building a sound platform from scratch;

* Promote public awareness and interest in national politics, particularly in the Office of the President;

* Train ourselves to become qualified candidates for political office through research, solicitation of ideas and advocating public involvement in the process;

* Encourage visitors to participate in helping shape the party platform through guest essays, an interactive forum and extensive links to internet resources;

* Broaden our understanding of opposing views through an open exchange of political discourse and the ongoing re-evaluation of our own beliefs.

JustWarTheory.com/

Just war theory is the attempt to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable uses of organized armed forces.

PoliticalSwitchboard.InvisionZone.com

Connecting citizens with their representatives and their activists.

LegitGov.org

Citizens For Legitimate Government™ is a multi-partisan activist group established to expose the Bush coup d'etat, and to oppose the occupation in all of its manifestations.

Once it became probable that GW Bush would be the supposedly "legal"--though, in terms of democratic standards, by no means legitimate--president of the United States, we began to focus on strategies to expose the coup and counter the Bush Occupation of the White House, and to counter the attempt on the part of the administration, in conjunction with the media, to create the appearance of legitimacy. GW Bush seized office by "virtue" of a contingency of GOPers who worked to ensure him, by various means (propaganda, obstruction of justice, voter and vote-counting intimidation, legal delay, specious and biased legal reasoning, an illegal purge of the voting rolls, illegally counted absentee ballots, discarded legal Democratic ballots, and other factors) the U.S. presidency, as against the expressed will of the people, both nationally and in Florida.

We are an activist group established to expose the Bush coup d'etat, making him utterly ineffectual as a putative leader. This effort involves opposing his cabinet choices when appropriate (i.e., in all cases), making spectacular political announcements that remind the public that our president was not elected.

100 Documents That Shaped America

1750-1800 | 1801-1850 | 1851-1900
1901-1950 | 1951-present

Infidels.org

The Secular Web is published by the Internet Infidels, an organization of unpaid volunteers dedicated to the growth and maintenance of the most comprehensive freethought website on the Internet. We have full recognition as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization, making all donations to the Internet Infidels fully tax deductible. We want to uphold the dignity of humanity and to encourage the avid pursuit of philosophy and the scientific enterprise. Our adopted mission is to defend and promote a naturalistic worldview on the Internet. To that end we publish the very best secular essays, papers, articles and reviews. We also stand as a bulwark against the forces of superstition, especially the radical religious right, whose proponents would have us fear knowledge rather than embrace it.

With over 8,000 documents and more than 400,000 unique visitors per month, the Secular Web is the largest and most heavily visited nontheistic website on the Internet. Despite the sheer quantity of published articles on the Secular Web, we make a sincere effort to publish only the best. Many of the contemporary writers and supporters who have published on the Secular Web are distinguished scholars in their own discipline. If you are a writer or scholar, we very much want to publish your work on the Secular Web. See our Submission Guidelines and our Call for Papers for more information. If you think you might be interested in volunteering your time in some way to help us with our efforts, please e-mail us. See the Contact Information page.

Although the Internet Infidels publishes from a nontheistic viewpoint, we publish or link to known online rebuttals of our material in order to assist our readers in their search for the truth.

FairElections.us

Help us replace our corrupt campaign finance system, which is funded and controlled by a tiny number of very powerful private interests, and help us replace our fraud-prone voting system, with clean, transparent, accountable and democratic systems, where people can get elected based on their character, track record, and ideas, rather than their wealth or ability to raise large sums of money. Help us take our country back so that we can finally have a nation of, by, and for the people, rather than of, by, and for the wealthy powerful interests.

http://www.publiccampaign.org/publications/trtce/roadtocleanelections2003.wmv

Bill Moyers Video

DailyEarth.com

The "Global Newspaper Directory" organized by U.S and country list. Each U.S. newspaper includes a description of content and unique coverage offered by the newspaper and the geographic area covered.

TheMemoryHole.org

Purpose > The Memory Hole exists to preserve and spread material that is in danger of being lost, is hard to find, or is not widely known. This includes:

• Government files
• Corporate memos
• Court documents (incl. lawsuits and transcripts)
• Police reports and eyewitness statements
• Congressional testimony
• Reports (governmental and non-governmental)
• Maps, patents, Web pages
• Photographs, video, and sound recordings
• News articles
• Books (and portions of books)

The emphasis is on material that exposes things that we're not supposed to know (or that we're supposed to forget).

The Responsibility of Intellectuals by Noam Chomsky

February 23, 1967

BTOnline.org

Between The Lines History

Since 1991, non-commercial, listener-supported WPKN Radio in Bridgeport, Connecticut, has produced a weekly, award-winning public affairs show called Between the Lines. A four-time winner of the Connecticut Associated Press Broadcast Award for Best Feature in the non-commercial category, this syndicated, half-hour program provides a platform for individuals and spokespersons from progressive organizations generally ignored or marginalized by the mainstream media. Between the Lines covers a wide range of political, economic and social topics.

Each program begins with a five-minute summary of some of the week's under- reported news stories gathered from the alternative press. This summary is followed by three five-minute interview segments focusing on significant international, national and regional issues.

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Our Goal is to Encourage Activism

Between the Lines offers our audience timely information on how to become active on the issues featured on each week's program.

Every interview segment includes phone numbers and Web sites to facilitate contact between listeners and activist groups, that are taking a stand on critical issues of the day.

Our site also offers text summaries, transcripts of selected interviews and audio archives of BTL programs, and links to additional resources.