This is one stellar human being. If I were ever to wax rhapsodic about anyone, she would be the one. First, I’d like to say that – unlike most icons of the left – she has proposed collective action against corporate warmonger criminals and the media they control:


“It would be naïve to imagine that we can directly confront Empire. Our strategy must be to isolate Empire's working parts and disable them one by one. No target is too small. No victory too insignificant. We could reverse the idea of the economic sanctions imposed on poor countries by Empire and its Allies. We could impose a regime of Peoples' Sanctions on every corporate house that has been awarded with a contract in postwar Iraq, just as activists in this country and around the world targeted institutions of apartheid. Each one of them should be named, exposed, and boycotted. Forced out of business. That could be our response to the Shock and Awe campaign. It would be a great beginning.

Another urgent challenge is to expose the corporate media for the boardroom bulletin that it really is. We need to create a universe of alternative information. We need to support independent media like Democracy Now!, Alternative Radio, and South End Press.”


I’m not saying this is the only thing people should do (and either is she) but as she notes above: it’s a good start. Roy is an author, activist, social critic – the list goes on and on -- and she does it all with wit, conscience, a deep thoughtfulness, and humor. And she is beautiful. And she has a mellifluous voice. And a beguiling accent...OK, enough already. You get the idea.

More info

Walter Benjamin

"The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are 'still' possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge--unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable."

--Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," (Spring, 1940) trans. Harry Zohn.

Walter Benjamin Research Syndicate

Looks like Greg agrees...

Of course, this doesn't explain everything...but it goes a hell of a long way.


from TomPaine.com

Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided—known as “spoilage” in election jargon—because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Drawing on what happened in Florida and studies of elections past, Palast argues that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots. So far there's no indication that Palast's hypothesis will be tested because only the provisional ballots are being counted.

by Greg Palast

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad.  But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent.  Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.

Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]

Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.[ Click here for full article ]

Predictions...

If the Republicans do not steal the election again and Kerry wins, you will hear the phrase: "lame-duck president" over and over. He will be crippled by Congress and by his willingness to stay in the middle of the road -- that turned far right in 1980 and even farther right in the last twelve years. Iraq -- and the region -- will evolve into the true quagmire it is. The economy will continue its dire course. These major trends will further kill support for Kerry and the dems. In four years, Hillary or Rudi will probably make it into the oval office -- but much more likely, it will be the right winger, who will have gone ever further right by that time: Rudi. Or Arnold if Bush can change that pesky law...