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Studs Terkel: The Passing of An Icon
Stephen Lendman
Despite his advanced age, the news came as a shock. An era had passed. On October 31, author, activist, actor, broadcaster, and mensch for all seasons Louis "Studs" Terkel died peacefully at his Chicago North Side home at age 96. Already weakened by other ailments, his health declined further from a fall in his home two weeks earlier.
His son Dan paid tribute to his father. He "led a long, full, eventful, sometimes tempestuous, but very satisfying life." He was the master of oral history. Calvin Trillin called him "America's pre-eminent listener" that was "all the more remarkable when you consider that he (was) a prodigious talker." On jazz to world affairs. His soap-opera days to the state of the nation. Interviews with entertainers, artists, politicians, philosophers and social critics. Figures like Bertrand Russell, John Kenneth Galbraith, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Zero Mostel, and Margaret Mead. Others he knew like Mahalia Jackson, David Dellinger, Nelson Algren, and Eugene Debs. The greats and near-greats but mostly ordinary people.
Not-Voting is a 'YES' vote to Reject a Corrupt System which thrives on the facade of Elections and Democracy!
Zahir Ebrahim
This is Project Humanbeingsfirst's response to many people's idea of “write-in” independent candidates as an alternate means of creating a third choice in these facade of elections when one is not content choosing from the “lesser of two evils” paradigm.
It is greatly disturbing that some very conscionable peoples of the press are still crying hoarse of “election theft” and “voter fraud” when their entire country has already been stolen. It appears that all within the United States comprise only “the crowd of simpletons and the credulous.” As Hitler had put it.
Happy Halloween
Gabriele Zamparini
How would you explain to an Afghani child that Obama is the lesser of two evils when he's going to escalate the massive crimes against humanity the US and the NATO have already been committing in that country for the past seven years?
The Elections and the Responsibility of the Intellectual to Speak Truth to Power
Twelve Reasons to Reject Obama and Support Nader-McKinney
James Petras
The presidential elections in the US, once again, provide an acid test of the integrity and consequential conduct of US intellectuals. If it is the duty and responsibility of the public intellectual to speak truth to power, the recent statements of most of our well-known and prestigious public pundits have failed miserably. Instead of highlighting, exposing and denouncing the reactionary foreign and domestic policies of Democratic Party candidate Senator Barack Obama, they have chosen to support him, 'critically, offering as excuses that even limited differences can result in positive outcomes,and that Obama is the lesser evil and creates an opportunity for a possibility of change.
True Vote Summarizes Problems in U.S. Election Thus Far
Kevin Zeese
“Unacceptable long lines, machine problems, registration and voter challenges and deception of voters”
The election integrity organization True Vote released a summary of the election-related problems that have been seen thus far in the 2008 election. True Vote keeps a daily summary of election activity on its website www.TrueVote.US.org.
Kevin Zeese, the executive director of the organization summarized what has occurred so far saying “Early voting has been like watching an election in a slow meltdown. The U.S. has been seeing long lines in early voting with people waiting hours to vote. Electronic voting machines including touch screens and optical scans have shown consistent problems, the most dramatic being the switching of votes reported in West Virginia, Texas and Tennessee.
The End of Prosperity
Stephen Lendman
From too much of a good thing. From the 1980s and 1990s excesses. From the longest ever US bull market. Heavily manipulated to keep it levitating. From August 1982 to January 2000. An illusory reprieve from October 2002 to October 2007. Fluctuations aside, all lost in the past 12 months. The wages of sin are now due, and payment is being painfully extracted. From all nations globally. Affecting ordinary people the most who had nothing to do with creating booms and busts. They got little on the upside but are paying dearly for the down.
Workers, Unite! Demand that you be paid in Gold Bullion!
Len Hart
Put 'supply side' nonsense to the test! Demand that you be paid in gold bullion. If right wing ideology and theories were correct, your bosses should not have a problem with it. They will not accede to your demands because they know that right wing economics is pure bullshit!
The right wing made a big mistake when it tried to tar Obama with a canard, accusing him of advocating Marxism by 'spreading the wealth around'. But it has been the GOP since Ronald Reagan's improvident tax cut which 'spread the wealth around' upward to the top one percent of the population. That increasingly tiny elite has since 'spread the wealth around' among their various investments, none of which create wealth.
Election 2008: Who decides, the people or the programmers?
Ernest Partridge
In another week, more than 100 million American citizens will go to the polls to choose their next president. -Or so most of those citizens believe, along with all of the corporate media and, of course, the candidates.
But might it be possible that the decision next Tuesday lies, not with those 100-plus million voters, but instead with a few dozen programmers who write the secret software for the voting machines that will record some 30 percent of the votes, and also for the computers that compile (i.e., collect and report) 80 percent of the "official election returns? The very idea is too horrible to contemplate, and so it is not contemplated; not by the media, not by most of the public, and not by the Democratic Party.
A presidential selection by anonymous programmers is not contemplated, much less discussed and publicized, in the face of compelling evidence that the 2004 presidential election, along with numerous congressional elections during the past decade, were in fact stolen.
Targeting Dissent: The San Francisco Eight
Stephen Lendman
Throughout much of American history, dissent was never tolerated if thought to threaten entrenched interests. Especially in times of war, economic crisis, or social stress. During the great Red Scare from 1917 - 1920. Under the 1917 Espionage Act that barred mailing materials advocating insurrectionist or forcible resistance, and the 1918 Sedition Act that banned criticism of the government and ongoing war effort. Later targeting those on the left by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the Smith Act, and during the age of Joe McCarthy. Post-9/11, anti-war activists, Latino immigrants, and Muslim Americans viciously targeted. The San Francisco Eight as well.
Former Black Panthers. On January 23, 2007, arrested in early morning raids in California, New York and Florida. Charged with the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer and various conspiracy acts from 1968 - 1973. A racist frame following decades of harassment and a ruthless vendetta against the Black Panther Party.
Voter Intimidation in Odd Places
Even, in Safe States, hints of fear and intimidation
Daniel Patrick Welch
Swampscott, Massachussetts, isn't the place you'd pick for right-wing hatemongering. Sandwiched between the industrial cities Lynn and Salem on Boston's North Shore (and somewhat wealthier and more conservative than both) Swampscott is a seaside bedroom community many people pass through on their way to and from Boston. In fact, M was doing just that when she came face to face with the kind of right wing tactics that have become infamous in swing states.
A woman--we'll call her M the Voter--takes the train to work in Boston, and parks at the station in Swampscott. A proud Obama supporter, she has a sticker prominently displayed on her car. She returned from work to find a sheet of paper stuck under her windshield. It read, in large caps, INDICTMENT. Below, the poster was more specific, informing her that she had been "listed in our registry" and "relevant information will be recorded and forwarded to the proper authorities."
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