Republican Election Tampering? No Way!

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Republican consultant Michael L. Connell is refusing to testify or produce documents related to alleged 2004 election tampering.

Republican IT consultant subpoenaed about 2004 election hanky panky
By Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane / September 29, 2008

COLUMBUS — A high-level Republican consultant has been subpoenaed in a case regarding alleged tampering with the 2004 election.

Michael L. Connell was served with a subpoena in Ohio on Sept. 22 in a case alleging that vote-tampering during the 2004 presidential election resulted in civil rights violations. Connell, president of GovTech Solutions and New Media Communications, is a website designer and IT professional who created a website for Ohio’s secretary of state that presented the results of the 2004 election in real time as they were tabulated.

At the time, Ohio’s Secretary of State, Kenneth J. Blackwell, was also chairman of Bush-Cheney 2004 reelection effort in Ohio.

Connell is refusing to testify or to produce documents relating to the system used in the 2004 and 2006 elections, lawyers say. His motion to quash the subpoena asserts that the request for documents is burdensome because the information sought should be “readily ascertainable through public records request” – but also, paradoxically, because “it seeks confidential, trade secrets, and/or proprietary information” that “have independent economic value” and “are not known to the public, or even to non-designated personnel within or working for Mr. Connell’s business.”

According to sources close to the office of Clifford Arnebeck, one of the Ohio attorneys who brought the case, Arnebeck intends to ask the court to compel Connell to testify. An emergency conference with the judge, originally scheduled for Monday, is to be rescheduled.

King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell

The case, known as King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell, was filed against Kenneth J. Blackwell on Aug. 31, 2006 by Columbus attorneys Clifford Arnebeck, Robert Fitrakis and others. It initially charged Blackwell with racially discriminatory practices — including the selective purging of voters from the election rolls and the unequal allocation of voting machines to various districts — and asked for measures to be taken to prevent similar problems during the November 2006 election.

On Oct. 9, 2006, an amended complaint added charges of various forms of ballot-rigging as also having the effect of “depriving the Plaintiffs of their voting rights, including the right to have their votes successfully cast without intimidation, dilution, cancellation or reversal by voting machine or ballot tampering.” A motion to dismiss the case as moot was filed following the November 2006 election, but it was instead stayed to allow for settlement discussions.

The case took on fresh momentum earlier this year when Arnebeck announced in July that he was filing to “lift the stay in the case [and] proceed with targeted discovery in order to help protect the integrity of the 2008 election.” The new filing was inspired in part by the coming forward as a whistleblower of GOP IT security expert Stephen Spoonamore, who said he was prepared to testify to the plausibility of electronic vote-rigging having been carried out in 2004.

Arnebeck’s hope was that in the course of the discovery procedure it would be possible to subpoena Michael Connell, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and others to obtain additional information and improve the focus of the case. The stay was lifted Sept. 19, 2008 by an order from Magistrate Judge Terrence P. Kemp of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and a subpoena was served to Connell on the following Monday, Sept. 22.

Allegations against Connell

The interest in Mike Connell stems from his association with a firm called GovTech, which he had spun off from his own New Media Communications under his wife Heather Connell’s name. GovTech was hired by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to set up an official election website at election.sos.state.oh.us to presented the 2004 presidential returns as they came in.

Connell is a long-time GOP operative, whose New Media Communications provided web services for the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee and many Republican candidates. This in itself might have raised questions about his involvement in creating Ohio’s official state election website.

However, the alternative media group ePlubibus Media further discovered in November 2006 that election.sos.state.oh.us was hosted on the servers of a company in Chattanooga, TN called SmarTech, which also provided hosting for a long list of Republican Internet domains.

“Since early this decade, top Internet ‘gurus’ in Ohio have been coordinating web services with their GOP counterparts in Chattanooga, wiring up a major hub that in 2004, first served as a conduit for Ohio’s live election night results,” researchers at ePluribus Media wrote.

A few months after this revelation, when a scandal erupted surrounding the firing of US Attorneys for reasons of White House policy, other researchers found that the gwb43 domain used by members of the White House staff to evade freedom of information laws by sending emails outside of official White House channels was hosted on those same SmarTech servers.

Given that the Bush White House used SmarTech servers to send and receive email, the use of one of those servers in tabulating Ohio’s election returns has raised eyebrows. Ohio gave Bush the decisive margin in the Electoral College to secure his reelection in 2004.

IT expert Stephen Spoonamore says the SmartTech server could have functioned as a routing point for malicious activity and remains a weakness in electronic voting tabulation.

According to Spoonamore’s Sept. 17 affidavit, the “computer placement, in the middle of the network, is a defined type of attack.” Spoonamore describes this as a “Man in the Middle Attack” or MIM.

“It is a common problem in the banking settlement space,” he writes. “A criminal gang will introduce a computer into the outgoing electronic systems of a major retail mall, or smaller branch office of a bank. They will capture the legitimate transactions and then add fraudulent charges to the system for their benefit.”

“Any time all information is directed to a single computer for consolidation, it is possible, and in fact likely, that single computer will exploit the information for some purpose,” he adds. “In the case of Ohio 2004, the only purpose I can conceive for sending all county vote tabulations to a GOP managed Man-in-the-Middle site in Chattanooga before sending the results onward to the Sec. of State, would be to hack the vote at the MIM.”

Hold letters were sent out in July to parties in the case, informing them of their obligation not to destroy relevant documentation. One such letter went to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, asking him to advise the federal government of its responsibility to preserve emails from Rove.

Arnebeck explained, “We expressed concern about the reports that Mr. Rove destroyed his emails and suggested that we want the duplicates that should exist [be put] under the control of the Secret Service and be sure that those are retained, as well as those on the receiving end in the Justice Department and elsewhere, that those documents are retained for purposes of this litigation, in which we anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio.”

More recently, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff has revealed that John McCain’s presidential campaign paid nearly a million dollars for web services to a firm called 3eDC, created and partly owned by McCain campaign manager Rick Davis. According to an archived version of a 3eDC webpage from 2007, that firm’s five “strategic partners” included not only Connell’s New Media Communications but also Campaign Solutions – a firm run by Connell’s sometimes-partner, Rebecca Donatelli – and a component of SmarTech called AirNet.

The Origin of the Case

The roots of the King Lincoln Bronzeville case go back to the case of Moss v. Bush, which Arnebeck, Fitrakis and other attorneys filed immediately after the 2004 presidential election. In that filing, they challenged the results of the Ohio voting on the basis of numerous irregularities and allegations of fraud and sought to depose President George W. Bush, Vice President, Dick Cheney, and then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, as well as Secretary Blackwell.

That case was dropped by the plaintiffs in January 2005, after the US Senate accepted the casting of Ohio’s electoral votes for George W. Bush. Two weeks later, Ohio’s Republican Attorney General James Petro attempted to sanction and fine the attorneys for what he described as a “frivolous filing,” but they were supported by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) – then the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee – who had already held a hearing at which Arnebeck and Jesse Jackson testified concerning the suppression of minority votes. Those same concerns are now at the heart of King Lincoln Bronzeville.

Source / The Raw Story

Thanks to Jim Baldauf / The Rag Blog

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NUTRITION : The Pros and Cons of "Organic" Food Revisited

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Yesterday The Rag Blog posted an article by Roger Baker in which he contended that the types of food you eat can be more important than eating food labeled “organic.” [NUTRITION: Are Organic Foods Just a Marketing Trend? by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / September 29, 2008.]

In the article below, Roger expands on this argument.

It is obviously important to distinguish between what is trendy and what is genuinely better nutrition, and this question strikes a vein of contention with many of those committed to health and sustainability.

The Rag Blog urges it’s readers to join in this discussion. Please post your opinions by clicking on “comments” below.

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / September 30, 2008

There’s ‘organic’ and then there’s what passes as ‘organic’
By Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / September 30, 2008

When you call something “organic” you may have to make a distinction whether you are referring to what passes for organic under the official USDA certification process under the Bush administration or something else entirely:

ALERT – USDA Announcement: Foods Carrying the USDA ‘95% Organic’ Seal Are Now Allowed to Contain Factory Farmed Intestines, PCBs, and Mercury / Organic Consumers Association.

The organic foods industry has become a hugely profitable concentrated business in the last decade. Go to this link and look to the right column “Who owns what” to show how a few giants now dominate the industry.

All About Organics – OCA’s Organic Resource Center / Organic Consumers Association.

Then go below to read how organic does not mean sustainable but may often be less sustainable due to energy inputs like transportation. As energy costs rise, farming will have to become more local and labor intensive, which are probably good trends, and will discourage meat consumption, but that has little to do with organic labeling.

The intelligent focus, I think, should probably be more on the KINDS of foods and their health implications and the sustainability of production and energy inputs rather than what can get organic certification nowadays under weakened federal standards. There is not much science involved these days to allow consumers to evaluate alternatives, so it ends up like arguing religion:

Organic food ‘no benefit to health’ / Guardian, U.K.

Also the term organic does not really mean the use of no pesticides, but primarily seems to imply a lack of chemical fertilizers:

History of the National Organic Program / Rainbow Grocery.

. . .What originally started as a system of farming, whereby the soil and the ecosystem around the plants cultivate a healthy environment, now big business farmers can purchase the organisms and other organic inputs that allow them to qualify as USDA Organic without developing a sustainable ecosystem. Rick and Kristie Knoll don’t need to purchase healthy organisms for their soil, or bugs that will eat the pests on their plants because the land they’ve developed already hosts a natural organic ecosystem. They also don’t chlorinate their salad greens or use sodium nitrate, practices that are acceptable by the new USDA standards.

And there are other issues beyond pests and soil conditions. “Most of the original organic farmers are out of business. Nobody is thinking about what cheap prices means to the farmers,” said Knoll. Paying workers a livable wage and offering affordable healthcare is often unheard of in agribusiness, but is another important goal of sustainable farmers. Food miles or how far a product travels before it reaches the retailer and eventually the consumer is another major concern. . .

Here is the conclusion from one recent review:

The findings of this study have revealed that the trend in the level of significance with respect to vitamin C, calcium and potassium in organically and follow a regular and consistent pattern. It was observed in this study that there were no significant differences in vitamin C content between organically and conventionally grown cabbage, Cos lettuce and carrots while significant differences were observed in organically and conventionally grown Valencia oranges with the organic Valencia oranges showing a higher values.

From the results as well as other previous findings, it is very evident that there is still controversy on nutritional superiority of organic and conventional produce because there are numerous confounding factors that make it difficult to establish a standardized environment in which to produce the two food sources. It is therefore highly recommended that future studies on organically and conventionally grown produce should attempt to address confounding factors such as climate, soil type, crop type, fertilizer application, post harvest handling and others before valid conclusions can be made.

Research Paper / African Journal of Biotechnology

I think the jury is still out on nutrients due to the many factors involved in soil types, etc.

Meanwhile it is clear, to me at least, that eating healthy kinds of foods like lots of grains, vegetables, and fruits is more important health-wise than the typical choice between organic and inorganic foods. The “organic” choice is largely cultural — and very controversial and heated as I have learned. I think things are going to have to move in that direction, but driven less by corporate influence and more by energy economics.

As the energy crisis worsens in the next decade, food will become more expensive, the number of farmers will have to increase, human labor and carbon rich soils will have to be substituted for fuel and nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides, and agriculture will have to become more local. More foods will be eaten in season, and the big organic food corporations will have to decline in influence after expanding hugely in recent years.

The number of farmers will have to increase because farmers are now aging and the average age of farmers is now over 55 and only about 6% are under 35 so farming knowledge is itelf disappearing. We have only 3-4 million farmers for a population of 300 million, or slightly over 1%. Meanwhile, water supplies are shrinking and the planet is warming.

But mainly world oil production is peaking. So is natural gas, meaning that nitrogen fertilizer made from gas will decrease agri productivity. And the mechanized farm equipment and shipping ability will decrease and thus require more human labor and more local production.

All this is spelled out in detail in Richard Heinberg’s latest book “Peak Everything”, Chapter 2, titled “Fifty Million Farmers”. Heinberg thinks the only alternative that will possibly feed the nation is for local gardening everywhere like we had in the USA during the world wars. Maybe suburban lawns will have to be farmed.

Already rising energy prices are raising the cost of food. From 20% of our national income in 1950 to a recent low of 10%, which is probably as low as it can go.

In 1900, 40% of the USA population farmed, but now with cheap mechanized energy to operate equipment it is close to 1%. After the Soviet Union cut off the oil to Cuba, the farming population in Cuba had to rise to 15-25%. If we extrapolate to the USA, this means about 50 million farmers, which is where Heinberg gets his estimate.

Of course meat production is a wasteful use of corn and soybeans compared to direct human consumption, so the nature of our diet will have to change too. Trucking food to distant processing facilities will have to be largely eliminated too. When the price of oil rises to $200 a barrel and higher, it will change the economy. There are probably good analysis pieces about this on The oil Drum and Energy Bulletin.

As well as references in Paul Robert’s book “The End of Food” (he is hip to peak oil; see page 222-225) and Heinberg’s chapter 2 references.

“The End of Food” is a good source on many of the current trends (largely unhealthy and unsustainable) within what has become an increasingly corporate-dominated food industry that kills many by promoting poor food choices, the organic issue aside.

[Also read Roger’s earliter article, NUTRITION: Are Organic Foods Just a Marketing Trend? by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / September 29, 2008.]

The Rag Blog

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Bush’s Bailout Tanks; What Austin Thinks

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Congress failed to pass the economic bailout plan today: the pundits are atwitter, the stock market has tanked, the politicos are pointing fingers, and the doomsday prophets are taking center stage. And George the Decider has added a final (one assumes!) exclamation point to his disastrous tenure.

Last Thursday a protest demonstration against the bailout took place outside the offices of Sen. John Cornyn in downtown Austin. Below is a fine video report from Ric Sternberg and an article by The Rag Blog’s Mariann Wizard.

Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / September 29, 2008

Bailout Protest: Austin, Texas, Sept. 25, 2008, by Ric Sternberg

Austin to Congress: No blank check!
By Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog / September 29, 2008

A more-or-less spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment protest took place in Austin Thursday, September 25, against a federal bailout of failing banks and mortgage lenders, at 5 pm in front of the offices of Texas Senator John Cornyn (R), as similar protests large and small materialized all over the country, and the news media reported that Congressional Republicans, feeling the fire from conservative constituents, were balking at the Bush bailout plan, citing overwhelming negative response from the home folks.

Probably 20 of us gathered at 6th & Lavaca, with the largest (as in “only”!) identifiable group Ron Paul supporters. Their signs said “NO BAIL-OUT” just like those of later-arriving leftists (MDS, Texans for Peace, and Iraq Vets Against the War) that I know of; sorry if I missed others) and unaffiliated outraged citizens.

Response from drivers was very good, lots of honking and waving — one guy passed at least 6 times, honking like crazy!! — flashing the peace sign, texting their pals, shouts of encouragement. Passersby — scarce on this corner; tactically a lousy location!! — were also friendly and responsive. One couple I chatted with — some kind of Yankee accents I cn’t identify — were at first kind of defensive, upon seeing my sign (NO BLANK CHECK FOR BANKS * EQUITY FOR TAXPAYERS * BAIL OUT AMERICANS, NOT MULTI-NATIONAL THIEVES), with the man asking, “Whattaya gonna do? Let ’em all fail?” But since there are so many good answers as to what should be done, with equity for taxpayers number one on my list, it took only a minute to defuse the defensiveness and get them agreeing that the Bush plan is a fiasco, although the woman was clearly nervous about lingering among the weirdos for long.

A young guy was there with a huge, amazing drum. I told him it reminded me of when the LBJ Library was dedicated, with all the rich and powerful eating b-b-q and drinking champagne under striped tents on the hill, ringed by 10,000 hairy hippies led by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, when every metal trash can in a 10-block radius became a drum, and was beaten into a 6-inch-thick metal pancake.

I would add, just in order not to disappoint you who know me, that taxing and regulating cannabis (“marijuana”) in the same way that tobacco and alcohol sales are regulated and taxed, would add bring in a LOT of tax revenues, and bring a lot of jobs out of the black market. In addition, the research that could then be done on hemp biomass fuel, the nutritional benefits of hempseed, and the medicinal qualities of cannabis flowers (and these are all being researched and, increasingly, used in other countries, make no mistake!) would have benefits far outstripping the merely economic (eg, the end of world hunger).

We should agitate to keep up the protests, the phone calls, and the demands for a PRINCIPLED buy-out of failing corporate giants. We should clearly enunciate what those PRINCIPLES must be. And we should try to build principled bridges with every concerned citizen, regardless of their affiliation.

We have an unprecedented opportunity to stimulate class consciousness (people who work for a living // people who live off workers’ labor) and class-based demands. How can we proceed, in the next few days, to use this unexpected parting gift from Bush & Co? “Be Specific!”

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Americans Cannot Vote Their Way Out of This Mess

Posted on September 29, 2008 by RagBlog

Delusion is the opiate of the masses. Credit: open source.

Eat Your Cats and Dogs
By Joel Hirschhorn / September 29, 2008

Nations come and go, rise and fall as elites and the wealthy make victims of most citizens and plutocracies prevail. Current dogma is that we live in the greatest nation on Earth. Perhaps in terms of ideals there is some truth to that. But with another trillion dollars that we now must borrow at higher costs because of the meltdown of the financial sector, solidifying our position as the greatest debtor nation, Americans have little to be proud of. Our government and politicians as well as the corporate state have failed us. What do our young people and future generations have to look forward to? Be prepared to eat your cats and dogs.

Still more lies and deceptions will surely hit us as the fear-selling two-party plutocracy works hard to convince us prior to the coming election that things have turned better. In reality, there is no reason whatsoever for thinking that the nation is back on the right track. Of all the many narcotic delusions filling people’s heads the most dangerous and self-defeating is that we can vote our way out of this mess. Everyone needs to understand that Democrats in Congress have played a major role in delivering the nation into the abyss we now find ourselves in.

If Barack Obama had an ounce of honesty and courage he would have boldly told his first debate audience that he was going to modify his spending plans and focus on reducing the nation’s debt. And why did he not express deep sadness that the current bailout was repeating a long history of making a mockery of capitalism, with government refusing to let most large companies fail? When corporate fat cats know that they can continue to rape the country and walk away with tons of money, all we really have is corporate socialism. So why did we not hear Obama talk about his commitment to put corporate criminals in prison? Not dozens, but hundreds of Wall Street thieves and lying bank officials should be dragged publicly in handcuffs into the justice system. Why can’t Obama talk this way?

Don’t get me wrong. John McCain is even worse. Newsweek has reported that McCain, in his last mission before becoming a prisoner of war, ignored the warning that an enemy missile had locked onto his plane and instead of taking evasive action decided to keep flying straight ahead to complete his mission. Is it not clear that McCain will fly the nation straight into oblivion if he thinks his conception of our national mission should be adhered to, no matter what the costs are?

Back to my point: Americans cannot vote their way out of this mess. Their only real opportunity this year is to vote AGAINST the two-party plutocracy by voting for any of the four third-party presidential candidates. We need the world to see tens of millions of votes protesting the failures of both major parties. This electoral rebellion would keep faith with Thomas Jefferson’s correct view that America would need a revolution every generation or so. To keep voting for Democrats and Republicans just makes gullible and delusional citizens co-conspirators in the vast criminal conspiracy that is our political system.

Keep that sickening image of Americans, many sleeping in the cars, unable to afford pet food and their own food in mind when you go to vote. We are not merely on the wrong track. We are on track for people being forced to eat their cats and dogs.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Source / Associated Content

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Why Not "Give Aid Rather Than Harassment"?

Posted on September 29, 2008 by RagBlog

Nickelsville residents George Williamson, left, John Clark and Aaron Colyer socialize in a tent next to a new no-trespassing sign that was staked into the ground several hours earlier by the Seattle Department of Transportation. Photo: Chris Joseph Taylor/Seattle Times

A Pink Housing ‘Bubble’ I Could Get Into
By Diane Stirling-Stevens / September 26, 2008

This article reminded me of something that I organized in 1993 down in Dana Point, California. I was helping the homeless by bringing them used clothing (and discarded clothing I found in dumpsters throughout the area). I would take the discarded clothing to my condo’; wash it, put it into my motor-home, and take it to Delaney Beach where there were about 20 to 30 homeless people who milled around on a regular basis.

I would open up the motor-home; told all of them to go in (just like a mobile clothing shop), and pick out clothing that fit them. It was wonderful to get actively involved one-on-one with each and every individual. I would listen to their stories about how they became homeless; we would build bon-fires on the beach, make coffee, and sit around sharing the conditions by which they no longer had a roof over their head.

Not one of the people I listened to were in any way ‘professional vagrants’ – they’d all been employed fallen on hard times, and were in limbo and anxious to find jobs.

I decided to bring my typewriter to the beach; used the generator to power up both my computer and my electric typewriter, and started re-writing their resumes so they could start job-hunting.

I also had (in storage) two grand pianos; stored after I’d lost my home because of a contractor who owed me $128,000 but couldn’t pay it because he’d recently filed bankruptcy. I decided to sell one of the grand pianos for $8,000, and used that money to help the homeless find a place to sleep and shower each night. I rented just one hotel room near the beach – it was $120/night. I negotiated a monthly rate for $2900, and during that month each and every person was able to shower; use their food stamps to get food which all of them shared, and I kept them in clean clothing by going to my home to do the laundry. They took their resumes; climbed on busses, and searched for jobs. The agreement was that all of them would put back 10% of anything they might earn for the next 3 months, into a common fund to buy another night at the hotel and keep providing for the rest of those who were not successful.

It was one of the most exciting times in my life as I saw how powerful the commitment was to have everyone succeed; it became a strong family, and one by one individuals were finding work and putting back into the ‘fund’ we’d developed. Because I couldn’t afford to put more than the $8,000 into the program, I knew at some point in time the money would be depleted but hoped everyone would be on their feet by the time I ran out of funds.

All but 3 were either employed full-time or part-time when my funds ran dry. Still, those 3 were sheltered by the rest of the group as each found housing, and opened up their doors to those 3 who had yet to find jobs or a place to live. I remained involved by doing the laundry; finding more clothes in the dumpsters, and by the time I relocated to another part of the state, no one was in dire need.

When I read through this article, I noticed how colorful the tents are and feel it could be an invitation to the rest of the community to get involved in a similar way. Rather than removing these people; threatening these people, I see these pink ‘bubbles’ as a signal for the city to start appropriate food and clothing drives to give aid rather than harassment.

I used to live in the Seattle area, and I so wish I did now because I’d be down there trying to lend a hand and ideas to these people. Potentially you, and any readers of your blog, might see what they might do to make suggestions similar to what I did in California 15 years ago – I saw it work with great success, and believe there should even be a campaign (no pun intended) to get Bill Gates and Microsoft involved. There should be a campaign to end the ‘pain’ of this camp; pink tents are signaling a need that can be answered without burdening any one individual or entity severely.

Here’s the article:

Homeless play waiting game in Nickelsville
By Erik Lacitis, Seattle Times staff reporter / September 26, 2008

The 5 p.m. deadline came and went on Thursday, and no city workers or cops arrived to sweep away Nickelsville, its 150 illegal fuchsia tents and its 100 or so residents.

Most everyone at the encampment expected that sometime this morning, the city would evict the encampment’s residents and arrest those who won’t leave voluntarily.

Nickelsville is spread over a grassy area, parts overgrown with Scotch broom, near West Marginal Way Southwest and Highland Park Way Southwest.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’ office said it won’t say in advance when the sweep will take place.

Earlier Thursday afternoon, workers with the Seattle Department of Transportation posted 2-by-1-½ foot “NO TRESPASSING” signs that promised those in violation could be charged with criminal trespass. The bulk of the land where the encampment is situated is owned by the SDOT.

As the workers put the signs in the ground, a couple of Seattle police offers stood by and watched. There were no confrontations.

The 150 tents were set up by the homeless and volunteers in the predawn hours Monday.

On Thursday evening, about 200 of the homeless and volunteers milled around. Some, like volunteer Joe Taylor, 23, who’s just starting on his master’s degree in engineering at the University of Washington, became de facto foremen. Taylor led a group of men putting together a small camp-administrative office using two-by-fours and wood from pallets.

He said he knew the structure might only last a day.

“I kind of designed it to be taken down,” said Taylor.

Some of the volunteers, such as Lindsay Andersen, 25, a program assistant at the Alzheimer’s Association in Seattle, had to learn on the job how to use a hammer or a pry bar to pull apart a pallet.

Andersen is 5-foot-2 and weighs 120 pounds. “My arms aren’t very strong,” she said.

If the cops arrived, she said, “I’m bailing.” Jail time doesn’t look that good on a résumé, she said.

There was an air of resignation at the camp about what will happen next.

Aaron Colyer, 28, was using donated pink paint to put color on a large wood structure now surrounding his tent and propping it off the ground.

He and volunteers had nailed it together on Thursday. He was listening to a Christian radio station as he painted.

Colyer said that when the city arrives to evict, “I’ll just sit on my porch, listening to the radio. If they want to take me to jail, let them take me to jail.”

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Source / Seattle Times

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‘Burn Baby Burn’ : Fight Censorship During ‘Banned Books Week’

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


September 27 – October 4, 2008. . .

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read!

See ‘Burn, Baby, Burn: On “Fahrenheit 451” and why good democracy should make you feel bad’ by Josh Rosenblatt, Below.

Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. People challenge books that they say are too sexual or too violent. They object to profanity and slang, and protest against offensive portrayals of racial or religious groups–or positive portrayals of homosexuals. Their targets range from books that explore the latest problems to classic and beloved works of American literature.

Click on image to enlarge.

According to the American Library Association, more than 400 books were challenged in 2007. The 10 most challenged titles were:

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

(Click here to see why these books were challenged.)

During the last week of September every year, hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events. The 2008 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 27 through October 4.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Association of College Stores. Banned Books Week is also endorsed by the Center for the Book of the Library of Congress.

Thank you for celebrating Banned Books Week!
Source / Banned Books Week

Burn, Baby, Burn

On ‘Fahrenheit 451’ and why good democracy should make you feel bad
By Josh Rosenblatt / September 26, 2008

Illustration by Kevin Peake / Austin Chronicle

When I was 12 years old, word came down that the Montgomery County School Board had decided to ban a book called Amos Fortune: Free Man from all school libraries. They claimed the biography of an African prince turned slave was too controversial and culturally insensitive to be forced upon (or even made available to) the minds of impressionable children, too accurate a portrayal of the darkest chapter in American history to be taught in American schools. African princes are snatched from their villages, the banners cried, and forced into slavery! The book contains the word “nigger,” they warned. Not once, but many, many times! All across suburban Maryland, you could hear the sighs of parents who until that point had never heard of Amos Fortune: Free Man but who could now sleep soundly knowing their kids wouldn’t be coming around asking them uncomfortable questions about it.

The next day, I went out and bought myself a copy of Amos Fortune: Free Man and, with all the brazenness of early adolescence, took it to school to read during English class. I was convinced that within those pages resided a tale of such decadence, such lasciviousness, such utter degradation and human calamity as to make my hair stand on end, my knees buckle, and my soul curdle. Why else would adults be banning it?

Turns out I had gotten my hopes up for nothing: The Amos Fortune affair, rather than being my introduction to a world of controversy and open defiance, would mark instead the beginning of my realization that adults had no idea what they were talking about. I read every page of that book and discovered nothing even remotely scandalous. There were scenes of violence and racism, of course, but anyone who had made it to the seventh grade knew what slavery was and was cognizant of the fact that those subjected to it had lived lives of unaccountable misery. Nothing new there. So why had they banned Amos Fortune, when I found nothing there to differentiate it from any number of morality tales about the value of hard work and charitable living shoved daily down the throats of American students from Maine to California?

It was then I began to realize that some people will try to ban anything, regardless of its artistic merit, its cultural status, or even its ability to titillate or warp young minds. Some people will try to ban things simply because they think banning things is a good and noble way to spend one’s time … because someone’s got to keep an eye out!

The whole fiasco left me terrified of the fragility of American liberty and ashamed of the prudishness of American culture, a feeling that has never gone away.

A curious (and very partial) list of books that have been banned, challenged, or redacted by government and/or school officials in the United States:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Canterbury Tales, The Diary of Anne Frank, Of Mice and Men, The Life and Works of Renoir, Little House on the Prairie, The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, To Kill a Mockingbird, The What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Girls: A Growing Up Guide for Parents and Daughters, The What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Boys: A Growing Up Guide for Parents and Sons, the Bible, Where’s Waldo?

“Books make people unhappy.”

This line comes from François Truffaut’s adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 sci-fi classic, Fahrenheit 451, about a dystopian future society where reading has been outlawed and books are burned in the streets. Newspaper comic strips are cartoons devoid of words. Human beings rely on impossibly vapid television shows for their senses of identity and purpose (Bradbury has said that his main motivation for writing the book wasn’t concern over censorship but rather fear that television was destroying people’s interest in reading). The written word is dead.

The Captain, played by Cyril Cusack, speaks that line while explaining to the film’s hero, Guy Montag (Oskar Werner), why it’s necessary that they and their fellow firemen burn books. The firemen, after all, are the best line of defense against the reading scourge; without their ability to suss out suspected readers, the America they live in – a land of drugged-up housewives and automaton husbands – would fall prey to critical thought and individuality, resulting in self-absorption, moral relativism, and societal collapse.

The frightening thing, of course, is that the Captain’s observation isn’t entirely wrong. After all, it’s a fool who sees a correlation between happiness and intimate knowledge of the psychological motives behind Raskolnikov’s axing the pawnbroker woman in Crime and Punishment, between happiness and knowing exactly how many hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were hacked to death in 1994, between happiness and the awareness of the perilously slim and shrinking lead Barack Obama has in the current presidential election.

But isn’t that what makes American democracy so fascinating? Any society can advocate the pursuit of happiness, but it takes an especially confident one to allow its citizens the right to pursue the opposite. Despair, worthless empathy, artistic immersion are the dread of others. Unhappiness. True democracy lies in a society resigning itself to the great multiplicity of human emotion and behavior. If anything, liberty should be making us all miserable.

Truffaut, ever the Frenchman, understood this paradox as well as anyone, and with Fahrenheit 451, he created a cinematic world that celebrates the variety of human experience even as it condemns viewers to the unvaried confines of authoritarianism.
Truffaut found just the right housing slabs to film at just the right point in gray, leafless late autumn to capture the pervading sense of lifelessness compulsory to any dystopian movie. And yet, at the same time, Fahrenheit 451 is the first movie the director ever shot in color – glorious Technicolor, to be exact – and he couldn’t resist shooting it as if it were some kind of carnival fun house, a world bursting with colors that both thrill viewers and sicken them with saturation.

Witness the director’s ironic, almost cartoonish use of green-screen backgrounds. It was the most blatant and unapologetically artificial manipulation since Hitchcock (his hero), brazen in its acknowledgement of the pure contrivance that is cinematic storytelling. It’s a technique that pays tribute to the wonder of film while acting as the perfect visual parallel to Bradbury’s condemnation of ersatz broadcast reality and its detrimental effects on the human mind, on human emotion, and on human society.

It’s film honoring film and condemning it at the same time.

A curious (and partial) list of movies that have been banned by government officials, Hollywood Production Code administrators, and/or Catholic League of Decency members in the United States (with explanations):

The Birth of a Nation (racism), The Tin Drum (underage sex), The Last Temptation of Christ (blasphemy), Scarface (violence), Frankenstein (cruelty), The Moon Is Blue (existence of female sexuality), The Outlaw (existence of Jane Russell’s breasts).

Every year, the American Library Association pays tribute to the lunacy of censorship by organizing events all over the country for Banned Books Week. In Chicago, for example, there’s the Read-Out! celebration, where authors and other celebrities recite passages from their favorite banned and challenged books. In Encino, Calif., students at the Valley Beth Shalom Day School will be taken to the school library and invited to explore banned books to see what all the fuss is about (I don’t envy them their inevitable disappointment). Even the virtual world of Second Life is staging an event.

Source / Austin Chronicle

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How Fascism Happens : That Hoary Truism About Learning From History

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Photo by basetree.

Fascism: When bad things happen to good people
By Paul Fish / The Rag Blog / September 28, 2008

A good and recent read is John Dean’s Conservatives Without Conscience which is really a rather dispassionate and mildly scholarly view of how corrupted core values and mindset can lead anyone, anytime to do things that go against their own “self interests” (to put a non-scaremongering euphemistic phrase in there). The truth is that Dean, who is still a conservative in the old Barry Goldwater sense, wrote this with a focus on the Reagan Revolution crop of neocons.

(Goldwater was viewed as “radical conservative” in his time, but would now be labeled a member of the far-left by the current crop of neocons, so successful has the Neo-Fascist revolution progressed in changing our language. Think “liberal” as a new four-letter word, when this country was, is, and always should be a shining example of a liberal experiment in government — and one for which being a liberal ought to be an honorific, a badge worn proudly.)

About tedious scaremongering itself, as opposed to calm and reasoned planning focused on “today”: I apologize for trotting out a hoary truism (while paraphrasing it) with the concept that to be ignorant of history (either not knowing it or practicing denial) dooms a people to repeat it. In the world of strategic planning, it is always best to understand the core of the opposition because, otherwise, you will never effectively counter its threat.

While not a member of the Jewish culture, and being of the first generation after WWII, I do not have direct experience of the fascist regimes prevailing during that period, nor direct experience from the changes imposed upon the European public over the period leading to military action and the organized ethnic purgings against Jews, Armenians, Poles, gays and general dissidents. I only know what I know from many, many readings of history of my parents’ times.

What I have gathered from those readings is that, for the most part, the step-by-step process that led directly to concentration camps, gas chambers and ovens, was that the citizens of the various European countries involved tended to go along with the step-by-step stripping of their rights, accepting the overthrow of their more democratic forms of government, and accepting racist hateful arguments of threats to their existence. They did so because most were relatively decent people, who could not fathom that “this could happen here.”

The citizens of Germany and Italy became complicit in that overthrow of their liberties and freedom of will because they just could not wrap their heads around the idea that the drip, drip, drip erosion of their freedoms could ultimately lead to where it eventually went. There were plenty enough citizens to stop the brownshirts, to stop the Italian fascistic factions if they had just taken off their blinders of denial and risen up en masse. But they didn’t. It just couldn’t happen here.

So what is happening here?

That there may be hundreds or thousands of people choosing to use aspects of fundamentalist theology to justify committing acts of terrorism is real. Nineteen people acted, rationalized by select sections of their theology, within this country and attacked what they saw as symbols of things they deeply resent about our country. However, most of the reactionary rhetoric used by our current administration and other neocons in general appears to target almost all who share the faith of the attackers, or who derive from Middle Eastern physical types similar to the physical types of the hateful 19.

To generalize like that — and don’t tell me you don’t see it, otherwise why is it an “attack” on Barack Obama to suggest he is Muslim? — is no less racist than the fear mongering about the “great Jewish threat” peddled from Hitler and his brownshirts.

One key factor to what is “fascist” is letting the State (read that: government) dump “unnecessary” liberties and only keep those that are “essential,” as determined by the State. We have allowed the Patriot Act. We have allowed spying on citizens. We allow rendition. We allow habeas corpus to be suspended. We allow “enhanced interrogation.” We allow rewriting of near-history to support us perpetrating hateful actions (read that: outright lying from the neocons) — like invading a country that was no threat to us.

Liberties gone, and Fear as a Tool? Check.

Another key factor to what is “fascist” is that there be a single father-figure leader, but one who has total power (the term “dictator” will do, though having an Imperial Presidency is fairly faithful to the concept). The State, with this dictator as titular head, tells you that it/he is privy to information not available to the masses and, as a direct result, knows much better than the masses what is really at play in the world, knows what is best for the people. How many times over this past eight years have we heard the phrase “We have secret intelligence that shows heightened activities by…” you name it? “Based on this secret intelligence it is imperative that we now…” take this action (go to war, spy on you, torture people that we [through our secret intelligence] know to be enemy operatives — though they must never stand trial in public because our secret intelligence will be revealed, ad infinitum)?

Do we now have a dictator instead of president? Well, okay: “Dictator” seems such a harsh word; “Imperial President” seems so fuzzy and soft. Why not go with some other more euphemistic name — you know, like “Decider”? Dictators decide what action to take and make it happen, and nobody can stop him/her from doing it. Like domestic spying (nothing happens, even though it is a felony at the time it takes place). Like torture (which is a crime, well, just about everywhere more enlightened people rule). Allow oil companies to create our energy policies in closed door sessions ( civil crimes of conflict of interest and flaunting the Public Records Act). Turning the Department of Justice into a one-party kangaroo court. And, as a final nail if it goes through, the Secretary Paulsen presented bailout plan (surely at least partly penned by David Addington), there is the power-grab clause 8a which tells Congress that is has no active part in handling the nation’s purse strings, and tells the Judicial branch it has no power over executive office decisions.

Check all your balances at the door if that clause goes through because, voila! we will have placed the cornerstone brick into the wall of the first American dictator.

Dictator/Decider in place? Check.

Some who say the argument about a new form of fascism taking root here is faulty base part of their argument on this: Under fascism, all of industry belongs to the State. I suggest that the arising neocon/neofascist has created a new flavor of fascism by holding a mirror to that core concept. Whether the State controls all of industry and finance or finance and industry controls the State (the neocon twist) still leaves you with one thing: A Corporate State. Palindromes still end up being the same word, no matter from which end you start your spelling. A corporate state is a corporate state and, so long as the State takes its marching orders and implements decrees from a titular-head decider, it does the duck walk and quacks.

Corporate State? Check.

Finally, and this is no afterward, no afterthought, what about all this neocon chatter over the past 30 years about restoring morality and ethics to a culture gone astray? That neocon Christianity thing? Sorry to say it folks, but that is covered under the tenets of fascism as well as being instrumental in “normalizing” diverse opinions to better reflect the ethos and “morality” of State “virtues.” It is central to controlling the masses (a political end, political tool that has been used throughout the history of humankind since the first time a king or emperor claimed he or she was also a god or tuned into secret divinations from on high, directly or through their personal High Priest). To tell someone that you want half their crop just because you are a king or queen is far, far less compelling than if you tell your people that the rain will stop, mothers will be barren, that they will be visited upon by famine or pestilence or have a one-way ticket to the flaming pits of hell if they don’t.

State Religion? Check.

On the off chance some may feel I’m just making this all up, pulling these tenets of fascism straight out of nether anatomical regions, I have one further reading recommendation, though it is a bit of a tough to slog through: Go a-Googling for “The Doctrine of Fascism” by one Benito Mussolini from 1932. Hitler was not the guy who created fascism; that was good old “let’s restore the Roman Empire” Benito. You are probably safe in skipping past most of section one because it is all vague sky-pie generalities. However, if read from a “here in America” perspective the second section, which spells out in by-the-numbers concepts all the working parts of fascism, it is amazing how close it reads to maybe the Podhoretz, Reagan, Cheney, Rove and Bush playbook, with stark parallels in ways I’ve discussed above as well as many others not mentioned.

Do I share this as some “hair on fire” rant with intent to incite panic? No. Fear? Well, yes: Fear by itself is not a bad thing. It evolved as a survival mechanism across millions of years. Fear is not an end, it is a motivator. Anger? I hope so. Because this “Revolution” that Reagan, Pat Robertson and Norman Podhoretz started is not some intellectual exercise, or some too-cute-by-half term used to describe reinstituting American values our wayward culture lost along the way. It is a revolution.

The crop of neocon believers in this revolution — meaning overthrowing the core tenets of this republic — never, ever agreed with the Constitution as it was originally written and has evolved for the past few hundred years. They descend from a malcontent minority present at the start of this country, and whose ideologies were never added to the country’s founding principles. The authors of this country were too liberal for their tastes. They descend from the nation’s forefathers who wanted Washington to be not the First Citizen President; they wanted him to be our new king. For life. They did not want checks and balances. They wanted, on the one hand, a monarchical central leader, but with feudal Nation States under him. They never wanted a central Constitution at all. So the new neocon verbiage “strict construction” is code language for strict deconstruction in reference to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They do not like this liberal country, founded by liberals, and run by an uber-liberal document called the Constitution.

They do not want a Bill of Rights but, instead, a Bill of Prohibitions. Otherwise these new revolutionaries would not constantly be arguing for amendments that strip or limit rights.

And, under the administration of Bush the Lesser, half of that Constitution is already gone, already in tatters. We are maybe one last election away from fruition for their revolutionary plan. Unless, of course, a security Red Alert is issued in October, with “secret intelligence” that there is a suitcase nuke loose in our borders, that Martial Law is declared to “protect us” and the elections are suspended until the threat is neutralized. Which it never will be. And Bush the Lesser remains our Decider. Strange to think that it could be that close at hand. And Bush the Lesser has the power, will, and demonstrated willingness of deceit to do it.

No. I do not see the “change” that’s needed as a matter of merely restoring decency or fairness or bi-partisan negotiation or ending one given war. We can not negotiate with those who wish to overthrow the republic. We must use what non-violent tools we have left to throw them out of power, to keep them from completing their converting this country to something our founders would recognize all too well, and which the founders committed tears, sweat and blood to get rid of: A vast anti-liberal tyranny.

All that, and Condi Rice just admitted that strategies for using torture took place in the White House before it was implemented as a policy of The State. And none of them are yet in jail.

I’m just saying.

TheRealFish

[Paul Fish posts to Progressives for Obama.]

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Acts of Contrition : C’mon Fatcats, Tell Us You’re Sorry

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Of Saints and sinners: ‘Saint Peter Repentant’ 1823-25 , Goya.

Along with the bailout, how about an apology?
By William Greider / September 26, 2008

The arresting image of Treasury Secretary Paulson genuflecting before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent gasps and titters through the corridors of power in Washington. Strong leaders do now bow before rivals, especially a woman. This was a droll gesture–Paulson’s way of pleading with the Democratic leader not to blow up the bipartisan deal they had negotiated for the massive bailout of the financial system. “I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Pelosi responded in kind. It was not Democrats, she pointed out, but Paulson’s own Republicans who threatened to sink the grand rescue plan.

The incident reminded me what is missing in this financial storm–any hint of contrition. The spectacle I want to see is powerful and self-important leaders getting down on bended knee and asking the country’s forgiveness.

Henry Paulson could offer apologies for Wall Street and also for the Bush administration’s lackadaisical response to the spreading financial contagion. He is not alone.

The Republican party owes us an apology but so does the Democratic party, because both are directly implicated in creating the conditions that caused the disaster. So is the august Federal Reserve. It dismissed the early bonfires and actively encouraged the money fever that has led to ruin. So are deep ranks of learned economists. So are the corporate think tanks that blessed and promoted the financial gimmicks that made the country vulnerable to what is now unfolding.

That’s before we tick off the names of celebrated billionaires.

I would like to hear someone in authority say they are sorry. Instead, the political dance in both Washington and Wall Street is focused on holding hands in crisis and diverting blame elsewhere. Maybe it was those careless homeowners who didn’t read the fine print in their mortgages. Or sleepy regulators and the creepy lobbyists. Maybe it was the Chinese, who lent us too much money for own good. Maybe it was God punishing his most-favored nation for our sins.

Strong men are not supposed to say they are sorry. It would make them look weak. The public would be rattled to learn that their leaders are fallible. This might deepen the panic. If anyone in power confesses error, then people may no longer defer to their wisdom. The usual sycophants in media and academia are anxiously talking up the “wise men” in charge, urging citizens just to keep the faith.

I have news for “strong men” and their followers. What they do not realize is the country has already gotten way past that point. Trust has been destroyed by these events. People everywhere are both shaken and angered by what they see, then become more angry as they watch politicians and financial titans scramble to evade personal blame or institutional culpability. People may not understand the fine print, but they can tell when they are not being told the whole story.

This may sound premature, but the road to national recovery will require more than bailouts and other economic measures. We need a season or two of truth-telling in high places. The country has been taken for a rough ride and it’s not over. But it can help people to come to terms and help politicians make wiser decisions if the political dialogue takes a radical shift toward honesty. The problem, of course, is nobody wants to go first, especially during a presidential election.

In the current political stew, John McCain and his retrograde managers are trying to create the notion that he is the “white hat” protecting Americans from this horrendous bailout. That’s nonsense and I doubt people will swallow it. On the other hand, Democratic leaders in Congress are standing arm-in-arm with Paulson and other masters of the universe pushing the Wall Street bailout. They pretend to an innocent aura they do not deserve. The brain-dead lame duck president doesn’t count either. Nobody listening; nobody will believe anything he has to say.

This leaves Barack Obama as the one political leader with clean hands and the ability to speak clearly and honestly about how this all happened, how we can repair it. Maybe he can express a blanket apology to the American people on behalf of government and Wall Street, then demonstrate that as president he intends to extract an honest reckoning from all of them.

Here is my fantasy for today: some public-spirited group will create a “reconciliation commission” to encourage an airing out of public confessions and apologies. It would function roughly like the healing processes in countries like South Africa, where people could come forward to admit old crimes. The hearings would not absolve anyone of punishable crimes. But they could help the country and its political institutions come clean. Put the truth before us so everyone can think more clearly about what therapeutic reforms are needed.

Confession is good for sinners, we are told. Forgiveness helps to cleanse and heal old wounds if the confessions are honestly given. To get back our bearings as a nation, we will need lots of both, I predict (and I’m not even Catholic).

[The Nation’s National affairs correspondent William Greider has been a political journalist for more than thirty-five years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers One World, Ready or Not, Secrets of the Temple, Who Will Tell The People, The Soul of Capitalism (Simon & Schuster) and–due out in February from Rodale–Come Home, America.]

Source / The Nation

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NUTRITION : Are ‘Organic’ Foods Just a Marketing Ploy?

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Organic apple. Better, or just more expensive?

Study shows what you eat is more important than whether the food meets the criteria to be called ‘organic’
By Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / September 29, 2008

Are “organic” foods really safer or more nutritious?

They could be in some cases, but in general, there is little scientific evidence that this is so.

The evidence seems to indicate that WHICH types of foods that one eats are a far more important factor than, say, whether you eat foods that meet the USDA criteria for organic, and as officially determined and promoted and certified by the organic food lobby. Here is a MAYO Clinic study affirming this conclusion.

The term “organic” seems to be largely a marketing ploy by corporate chains like Whole Foods to convince people that by eating their higher-priced foods, which do not involve the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, one can therefore avoid medical problems which are now scientifically known to be genetic in origin, etc. It is little accident that the isles of organic groceries are filled with countless herbal nostrums and remedies and cures with no proven scientific validity whatsoever, whereas drugs of well-known efficacy such as aspirin are non-existent.

A multi-billion dollar marketing empire has thus arisen based on the unsubstantiated theory that “pure” organic foods are by themselves an important addition to health and longevity. And furthermore that general health and longevity of consumers are determined more by the conditions under which the food plants and animals are grown are more important than which types of foods are chosen for the diet. Another example of corporate marketing and their lobbies dominating science.

The fact is that average human life spans were MUCH shorter BEFORE the advent of chemical fertilizers, genetic engineering, and pesticides in the food chain, and before the advent of scientific medicine.

Thus, whether or not you eat healthy KINDS of foods is probably far more important than the parts per billion of fungicides that may be present in your foods, until it is scientifically proven to the contrary, especially since it is now known that many naturally occurring toxins are also harmful.

That is not to say that the chemical additives are perfectly harmless, but rather that they may be an unimportant factor in relation to other risks when they are evaluated scientifically rather than emotionally.

The nutrient and chemical toxin quantities are usually unmeasured even in those few cases where their benefit and risk is accurately known, thus giving the “organic” label a false importance. The organic food lobby is totally focused on the organic certification to the exclusion of the scientific assessment of risk as a food health factor, because to adopt this official certification is such an important source of corporate profit.

In any case, peak oil will localize food production and minimize fertilizer and pesticide additions, so these will become factors of less concern as food costs rise and food availability tself becomes primary.

Higher priced “health” foods involve billions of dollars of dubious and unproven benefit and should be subjected to the impartial judgment of science rather than pseudo-science and corporate marketing promotions.

It is far better for health and the wallet to focus on the increased consumption of grains and vegetables, reduced meat consumption, and increased exercise than it is to focus on the “organic” label – if one is to survive in optimum health and to avoid the incipient poverty induced by corporate marketing scams.

The Rag Blog

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Some Not So Ancient History: Get Out and Vote

Posted on September 29, 2008 by RagBlog

Why Women Should Vote

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.


Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.


The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’


(Lucy Burns) They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

Dora Lewis

(Dora Lewis) They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.

Alice Paul

(Alice Paul) When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. See this also.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because- -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?

Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie ‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown , New York.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was–with herself. ‘One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,’ she said. ‘What would those women think of the way I use, or don’t use my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her ‘all over again.’

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] at [National Woman ‘ s Party] headquarters, Jackson Pl [ace] [ Washington , D.C. ]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right).

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he sa id, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party – remember to vote.

Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

History is being made.

Source / Rense.com / Posted August 24, 2008

Thanks to Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog

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Just How Much Is A Billion, Anyway?

Posted on September 28, 2008 by RagBlog


How many zeros in a billion?

The next time you hear a politician use the word ‘billion’ in a casual manner, think about whether you want the ‘politicians’ spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of it’s releases.

A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

Source / Snopes

Thanks to Diane Stirling-Stevens / The Rag Blog

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Orlando Homeless Win Big Victory in Federal Court

Posted on September 27, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


City ordinance that limited size of homeless feedings linked to gentrification efforts
By Jay D. Jurie / The Rag Blog / September 27, 2008

ORLANDO — The City of Orlando, in keeping with corporate dominance by theme park and other business interests, has adopted a number of repressive measures promoting a pristine, “family values” image.

Combined with large-scale publicly-funded redevelopment initiatives, these measures have essentially created a downtown police state to facilitate “revitalization” through ethnic cleansing (displacement), the removal of other discordant elements such as youth and the homeless, and gentrification.

Weekly feedings of the homeless by Orlando Food Not Bombs (FNB) in the City’s landmark Lake Eola Park does not fit with this agenda. Over two years ago the City passed an ordinance restricting the size of any single feeding to 25 individuals. Since FNB feedings have typically attracted 30 to 50 members of the homeless population, this belied the claims of the City that it was not singling out any particular organization.

Central Florida Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS) and University of Central Florida Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) have been involved in conjunction with FNB in the feeding program. Members of both MDS and SDS testified at public hearings against the passage of the ordinance, and after it passed defied the ordinance by refusing to move or scale back the feeding program.

On one occasion, an FNB member was arrested for having the audacity to feed an illegal number of the homeless. On another occasion, several FNB members were arrested for disturbing the peace outside a fundraiser for Mayor Buddy Dyer. In both cases the FNB members were acquitted at trial. When the ACLU agreed to take up a suit against the City for the infringement of the First Amendment Rights of FNB, the First Vagabonds Church of God and others involved, joint FNB and MDS member Benny Markeson was one of five individual plaintiffs. With this latest victory–in federal court–it’s homeless team 3, City zip.

Federal Judge Strikes Down Homeless Feeding Ban
By Brandon Hensler / September 16, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. – The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida won an overwhelming victory today in First Vagabonds Church of God vs. City of Orlando, the highly publicized “homeless feeding” case in Orlando. The 14-page opinion issued by Federal Judge Gregory A. Presnell hinged on the plaintiffs’ right to Free Exercise of Religion and Freedom of Speech.

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU on October 12, 2006 on behalf of the First Vagabonds Church of God (FVCG), Orlando Food Not Bombs (OFNB) and several individuals. The lawsuit alleged that the City of Orlando’s ordinance on Large Group Feeding violated religious groups’ constitutional rights to free speech, free assembly, free association and freedom of religion. The City’s ordinance required groups and individuals to apply for a permit, only two of which are allowed per year, in order to share food with more than twenty-five people in downtown public parks. Violations were punishable by sixty days in jail and a $500 fine.

“After a two-year battle in court, we are thrilled that the court is vindicating the rights of the First Vagabonds Church of God and Orlando Food Not Bombs, and the homeless persons they serve,” said ACLU senior attorney Glenn Katon, who also heads up the ACLU of Florida’s Nancy and Martin Engels Religious Freedom Project. “Freedom of religion and freedom of speech are the cornerstones of the First Amendment and this ordinance flew in the face of the most basic constitutional rights of people using the parks to share food with the homeless. Now, thanks to a lot of hard work by many, they can.”

The opinion states: “The Court finds that there is no rational basis for this Ordinance. None of the legitimate government interests proffered by the City are served by this Ordinance. Furthermore … the Ordinance does much more than incidentally burden Nichols’ congregation … therefore, the Court finds that the application of this Ordinance violates the First Amendment rights of Nichols and FVCG.”

“If the spirit of God draws number twenty-six to me, how can I tell God, ‘no’,” Pastor Brian Nichols of the FVCG said earlier this year. “How can I choose between God’s will and the City of Orlando’s ordinance?”

The judge’s opinion went on to say: “Rather than address the problem of homelessness in these downtown neighborhoods directly, the City has instead decided to limit the expressive activity which attracts the homeless to these neighborhoods. While the Ordinance may very well accomplish the goal of diminishing the number of homeless in the Thornton Park and Lake Eola neighborhoods, the restriction clearly prevents OFNB from communicating its Constitutionally protected speech at a meaningful location which, from time immemorial, has been the traditional public forum for free speech.

Although some incidental restrictions on First Amendment freedoms must be tolerated, the Court concludes that the restriction here goes too far.”

“This ruling sends a loud and clear signal to the Orlando community – the ACLU is here to stay, and we will be protecting the Constitution in Central Florida,” said Dr. Joyce Hamilton Henry, ACLU of Florida Central Region Director. “We expanded into this part of the state because there are so many real issues that need our attention – and we are already seeing the benefits to our presence here.”

The FVCG and OFNB are Orlando-based organizations that assemble weekly to share food in public parks and to express their religious and political beliefs, respectively.

The FVCG is a homeless church without a building for worship. Pastor Nichols’ religion requires him to share food and help provide life sustaining services with his congregation.

“This has been an emotional legal battle – and we are pleased that in this case the rights of the downtrodden are being vindicated,” said Jackie Dowd, ACLU cooperating attorney. “This was a mean-spirited ordinance. Hopefully it sends a signal to the City of Orlando that we mean business and we won’t tolerate unconstitutional policy in Orlando.”

Attorneys in First Vagabonds Church of God vs. City of Orlando were Glenn Katon, ACLU of Florida senior attorney; and Jacqueline Dowd, ACLU Cooperating Attorney.

A copy of today’s opinion can be downloaded in PDF here.

Source / ACLU of Florida

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