2000 Dead

PeaceAction-WI organized a candle light vigil to commemorate the 2000th soldier to die in Iraq. Hundreds of people lined Lincoln Memorial Drive holding candles and carrying signs. Cars beeped their horns in support, some voiced their disdain for the message. Police on horseback stood watch on the perimeter and a few television crews were on hand collecting file footage.

Several leaders spoke at the event including myself. Here is the speech I gave at the rally in Milwaukee Wisconsin USA.

Thanks George welcome everyone,
I'm Charlie Koenen and I've prepared something for today,
Peace Action and United for Peace and Justice also prepared for this day... Cindy Sheehan prepared for this day.... People in cities across the nation have prepared for this day...

Unfortunately, another family of an American soldier has to make real the preparation for this day.

And now we gather to send out a message locally and to join people in cities nationally— to SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER- to say BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!

We stand here today to tell the Bush Administration that a WAR BASED ON LIES will never succeed... That A WAR BASED ON LIES that sends our troops out to kill and destroy nations based on false fears and forced sense of duty... will not be tolerated.

We stand united with our soldiers in the knowledge that their duty and devotion to the founding principles of our great nation IS worth fighting and dying for!

But we also must stand together in our outrage against a system of corruption and manipulation that has misled our nation into acts of hideous aggression against people of other nations.

We must stand united in our sense of duty and patriotism to speak truth to power. To risk alienation, persecution and discrimination in order to end this unjust occupation.

We honor our soldiers and their role as defenders of freedom and liberty. We realize that their duty and honor is preserved by their strength and allegiance.

This strength and allegiance is also why so many families seem to object to our actions. For in battle they are trained to not ask why, but rather to do or die. Unfortunately for the families of the 2000 soldiers, this duty has become forever real.

But if their duty is to hold rank and follow command, then what is our role as citizens in this democracy? Are we not the conscience of our governing body? Do not we have the duty to question our leadership?

Our obligation to this great nation is not merely to march to the polls every two or four years to choose a leader--- to read a few talking points or sound bites and then pull a lever or pencil out a spot on a ballot card...

No our obligation is to put in office, leadership that we think will help advance our nation and be true to our sense of place in the world, AND to hold that leadership accountable for the trust and allegiance we granted them through our democratic election process.

It seems to clear that we as a nation have lax in our duty to hold leadership accountable. We are so busy trying to carve out a niche in this world for ourselves and our families... that we have slackened our duty to the Democratic process we so enjoy and defend.

But today we stand united, and today we are beginning to see once again that there is hope- That we the people will again hold our democratic process high and see that liberty and justice prevail over the abuse and greed, of the fear and contempt, that seems to have taken control while many of us were busy with our lives.

Today we mark a milestone, and today as further revelations unfold and incriminate the leadership of our great nation, we have the chance to take back our democracy,
to see that questioning authority, and speaking truth to power can bring about change.... can make right the wrongs, and can make us strong and sensible once again.

We are but one planet, with one people.... the sooner we realize this...the sooner we find the true way to end terror

through love and by peace.

thank you and keep growing the effort....
Patriotism is a duty not an elective.

Come out tonight- Bring forth your light -
Share in our plight - Keep real the fight....
to Make Peace our Right!

Bring them home now!

Do our Morals need a Brake Job?

Insulated by our ready-to-wear materialistic surroundings its easy to loose track of the moral backbone that used to define our nation as the pinnacle of the success of Mankind... Especially when all the typical touchstones to judge our moral barometer have been hijacked and used to support that materialism and moral recklessness.

It is easy to just maintain course, its almost like we keep the cruise control set on "numb", and carry on with life as we know it to be... we don't even notice the changes. We head off to work every morning after getting the kids off to school, we shuttle them from one event to another while finding time to meet with friends or office buddies. On Wed nights we head out for volleyball league... We catch the news on the 24hr news channels when we can... grab a paper to confirm the "facts" - and if we really want to be "involved" - we might even grab a second paper, or watch another news station so we can feel as though we've done our civic duty to fact-check the news views. But for the most part, as long as nothing jars our immediate surroundings, we aren't really concerned about noticing as things change around us—subtle changes by themselves—but collectively they represent a substantial shift in the world around us... and again, as long as it doesn't jar our immediate world... we are too busy to observe them... we've got housework to do, a halloween costume to make, the car to fix, a new television to save for and buy... we keep our moral barometer close to our chest... we've not done anything wrong to speak of... most of our friends seem to be okay too... good enough.

Well what if good enough wasn't good enough? What if by focusing on the immediate and up-close, we failed to see the forest for the trees... we failed to see the big picture because we're busy with our little corner. When's the last time you had the brakes replaced on your car? You've been driving it for years and never thought about brakes... you perform maintenance as the manufacturer directs... but one day the service technician calls to say your brakes are nearly gone and need to be replaced. You approve of course... and they repair the brakes... replacing the worn out pads and bleeding the hydraulic system. You pay the mechanic, jump into your car and head out onto the road.... at the edge of the service station's driveway you go to step on the brakes and screech the tires, nearly causing the car behind you to collide into your car! What happened? You've grown to accustomed to your brake pedal engaging so far down that now the newly restored pedal is pushed to lock-up in a fraction of what you were accustomed to... has that ever happened? You been driving for years and never noticed the subtle degradation of your brake pedal... until someone brings it to your attention.

The same can be said for our brake pedal of morality... slowly over time it has begun to degrade. Almost imperceivably it becomes less critical of transgression, of impropriety, misconduct and corruption. It becomes unaware of immoral behavior and injustice unless they jump in front of us and require us to slam on the brakes to avoid contact.

What does this mean? How does realizing this help you? It's time to take our moral code in for a "brake job". Time to accept responsibility for our deteriorating ethical and moral standards before they fail and involve us in a tragic accident.

Today our collective moral fiber is becoming like a brake without pads. Soon we will be running metal on metal, scraping deep gouges into the wheels and becoming unable to avoid obstacles. If we do not correct the problem, we will meet with catastrophe. And just like the inconvenience and hardship we must endure as the brakes are repaired, we will be required to endure hardship to fix our moral brake pads. We have to seek alternative modes of transportation and adjust our lifestyle as the car's brakes are fixed... So too will we have to consider alternatives and adjust our lifestyle as we attempt to fix our moral brakes.

As we allow ourselves to question our sense of morality, our very way of life comes into question. Have we been riding the brakes? have we driven our car too hard? Have we loaded it too full and caused the brakes to work beyond tolerance? We need to look at our world and see where we have let slacken our moral fabric.

First we need to open our hearts (and minds) to the possibility that many things that make secure our lifestyle, could possibly also have side-effects that keep us comfortable and numb to to truth. We have to temporarily suspend the structures we have grown to depend on to hold our world together... life is terribly busy as it is... but we need to be able to question the things that seem to support the busy chaos we face daily- and call life. Just like it was a good thing for the mechanic to tell us to question our seemingly safe and secure car's brakes because upon closer inspection, they were teetering on the brink of failure... We need to give heed to the social mechanics who are warning of our moral brakes nearing catastrophic failure.

Look around and begin to ask the big questions... what are we doing as America, the leader of the known world— an international world that grows closer and more similar every day? What are the logical outcomes of the lifestyles we lead as they relate to the rest of the world we are so intrinsically involved with?

We might give pause to ponder just that... How has our lifestyle become directly intertwined with the entire planet?... because it is—and we really need to give time to ponder what that means.

What is our lifestyle? How does it come to be? Who do we look to -to create the lifestyle we call our own? TV shows, famous people, nameless people who parade across magazines, television, websites and papers that show us what the "good life" looks like... we go to malls, big box retailers, to stores and online to obtain material possessions that help us define comfort as we are told it is... but what are they? How did they get here? Who was involved in the creation, production, delivery, showcasing and sales of these possessions? Who was behind the making of our desire to covet these items? Who marketed them, who brought the message before us - in print, pixel, proximity, or perception? What was their gain and motivation? More importantly, what was lost in the process??? Dignity, family, community, economy, rights, healthcare, freedoms, will, morality, sense of self... Yes there are many who seem to gain at the process of getting us more material possessions... but i think if we look closer, we'd find the gains for a few, far overshadow the gains of the many and overall, the system itself fails.... if we're looking at the forest—not simply the trees.

How is that possible? How can we find a real understanding of the human condition when many of the very doors of our perception are built to numb our views? Yes- it is said we have a liberal media.... who exactly is saying that? ... conservative talk show hosts, right-wing pundits? our leadership in this administration? ... the media corporations who've been purchased any company with enough money and connections to power? Multinational Corporations who's holdings are as far-flung as toilet paper and machine gun bullets? Recently these Corporations have been allowed -nay- encouraged to swallow up entire sectors of mass communication creating monopolies and changing news into views, reporting into propaganda, and communication into coercion— don't believe it?

Explain the 2002 news media outlets "reporting" of Iraq's WMDs and connections to AlQueada- effectively verifying the Bush administrations need for war. Explain Judith Miller and Michael Gordon breaking story after story on the front pages of the Times after talking with Cheney and Bush aides-then the bush administration taking to the Sunday talk show circuit using the very story they leaked to the times as the justification for their actions! Explain how the outing of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative who happens to be the wife of Joe Wilson the very ambassador who days before had publicly attacked the credibility of the entire Bush administration's case for war... Explain how "propagandist" Judith Miller an operative for the pentagon with close ties to Cheney and Rumsfelt could have unfettered access to the front page of the newspaper without fact checking.... not because people with the paper weren't doing their jobs... but because the editors in charge... who answer directly to the ownership, carried out policy... Explain how a "reporter" who has repeatedly manipulated information in leading news stories, still holds her job... while a scandal of miniature proportion is blown to national attention with the revelation that Jason Blair had fabricated some facts in his stories... Blair is fired, while Miller serves time in jail and comes out to win a 1st amendment award for protecting journalistic rights! Why? Because the media outlets have become propaganda tools for the government.... Miller works for the administration... A government who desperately wanted to create support for a military aggression with Iraq— an effort with tremendous benefit to the owners many multinational corporations and executives with holdings in these multinational corporations. Don't believe it? Time to make an effort to look into who owns the media outlets, and what other outlets these outlets own... what executives run these media monopolies and what interests have they served prior to heading these media outlets... Since 1996 went the Communications Act was passed allowing for Media Monopoly ownership and government oversight of public airwaves.... nothing has been furth from the truth about liberal media.... except that the media tries to sell us that they are still biased... allowing them to put more right wing shows on air... and cancel the remaining real news programs- like Bill Moyers.

How does this matter to us and our little tree in the forest? What's that got to do with our moral brake pads? Well if we don't begin to look beyond our corner of the forest, if we don't listen to the social mechanics telling us our brakes are near failing.... when it comes time to stop these transgressions, our infrastructure will fail us and we'll careen out of control into catastrophe.... our tree and surrounding trees will be no match- no matter how well we pruned and tended them- no match to the corporate machine that will overrun our part of the forest... and our refusal to look to the forest for larger signals or signs, will be our own undoing when the trees nearby begin to fall.

This week in the forest:

Bankruptcy Law went into effect... the law helping the billion dollar credit card corporations from being on the hook for people who are cooerced into massive debt by lending agents. Now folks who get in trouble or lose their jobs, will also lose their homes and possessions to pay back the ultra-rich credit card corporations.

The Leave no Oilman behind bill was passed by a two vote margin. This Bill Actually had members of the house of representative chant "SHAME, SHAME, SHAME" on the house floor as the vote was read.... yes after coming up short in the vote because some members of the republican congress actually stood up against a bad bill... Republican leaders and the now criminal Tom Delay extended the vote an extra 40 minutes while they roamed the room looking to squeeze republicans who voted with their conscience- not their loyalty cards.... they found the two they needed and closed the vote... 210-212 in favor of a bill giving billions in concessions to energy companies- but far worse... worded in the bill is a clause that forces any community or group who objects to an energy company wanting to build or expand a refinery in their community... to pay the energy company's legal fees-regardless if they win or lose!!!

Medical Malpractice Caps were signed into law- limiting the exposure multinational corporations and their doctors can be held liable for wrongdoing.... who else benefitted?? Insurance companies!

The Arctic National Wildlife Reserve ANWAR drilling rights was up for a vote today...
Congress- under pressure from an awoken public and misled by a media that wants to profit from its opening has voted to begin drilling in the disputed AREA 1002... The truth is the oil from ANWAR will not be used in America... it is well documented that it will go to asia because the cost of transporting is much less than sending it to the lower 48. SO while Exxon reports a 4.5 million dollar PER HOUR profit, we are giving them access to and ownership of our natural resources... not even the oil- so much as the wildlife refuge... Truth be told that the 1002 area is the one grazing area for ALL the caribou of the 100 million acre arctic region... its fragile meadows bloom and produce for precisely 1 month every year... the one month that dozens of animals come to sire their young on the lush vegetation... the remaining 11 months of the year... the area is mostly baron... but the very existence of several species of arctic animals depend on that land for that one crucial month per year...

Also today in the forest, Texas Strongman Tom DeLay had a warrant served for his arrest. The once undisputed heavyweight of the House of Representatives now faces multiple charges for corruption, money laundering and fraud. Senate Heavyweight Bill Frist is under scrutiny as well as top whitehouse advisors Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.... rumors point all the way to to Pres and vp in the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Harriet Miers moves closer to becoming another presidential crony appointed to a job they have no qualifications to head up... 250 million people in america and the best choice Bush could find was his own lawyer!!! She is on track to become the next Supreme Court Justice... SHAME SHAME SHAME!!!

Saddham went on trial today... in an interesting spectacle of a trial.... only one reporter Dan Murphy from the Christian Science Monitor was allowed into the courtroom... cameras showed the ruler on a 20 minute delay in case he said something america didn't like.

Also the Steroid abuse trial that former Atty General Ashcroft said would be punished to the full extent of the law for their involvement in national sports doping.... were sentenced today to a whopping 4 months in jail.... kids selling grass get more time than that... well it sounded good when Ashcroft spoke to the nation... now little or no press covers the results.

Meanwhile we quickly approach 2000 dead american soldiers in the "skirmish" in Iraq. Condi Rice testified in front of Congress today... saying the war is going along as planned.... but refusing to tell congress what that plan was.... Once again she lies to protect the president and his desire to conquer the oil fields... just as she did countless times in the ramp-up to the invasion of iraq... proof positive of WMD's, Proof of chem/biologic weapons, proof of links to AlQueada and 9/11—yes the Millionaire Condi Rice DID have a supertanker named after her... no conflict of interest here.... business as usual.

Time is running out to wake up and fix those moral brakes... if we truly do believe in god -more than the president does... then we might want to consider our actions here on earth and their repercussions in the afterlife... eternity is much longer than the run time of Friends.... and the almighty is no judge wabner, for (s)he can see through our thinly veiled attempt at looking pious as we feed off the desecration of others... as we profit from others misfortune, as we buy stock in the companies who exploit for riches rather than help for redemption. Jesus ran through the temple overturning the tables of the money-changers.... watch that that doesn't happen to your portfolio. As we ignore the health of the forest, our trees will surely die and no one will be there to help us when the wrecking crew arrives. Look at the cause of our insulated lives, see through the efforts to preoccupy us as all our freedoms are stripped away... fight now to regain our self-determination from the tyrannical corruption of our government leadership and the corporations who hope to win independence from US rule with every new law and judicial appointment.

Corporate Attack of Organic Standards

Hi,
I checked the fraud site and this seems legitimate... and unfortunately it also sounds very plausible. As Americans are/have become the most overweight and obese nation on the planet (yeah I know)... and as the expensive addictive pharmaceutical dietary and health pills are being paraded across television sets around the country... there is a growing movement towards organic foods and local produce as a better way to good health... it seems too big an "opportunity" for the super stores not to want in....and unfortunately the growth, care and most important, distribution methods of local organic food runs counter to the profit-centric mindset of the corporate monopolies who stand to lose market-share as the local organic movement strengthens—taking dollars from their pockets and customers from their shelves... that is unless they can manipulate the organic food standards... weaken the definition of what is organic, to allow them to infiltrate the market.

I don't think you need to play partisanship politics on this one folks... its just as bad for republicans as for democrats... liberals as conservatives, though an argument can be made that the organic standards were established by people other than the current administration and their emboldened masses in tow... it is those masses that need to motivate and join with the movement towards organic foods, if they care about the quality and availability of good wholesome, organically grown, pesticide-free, local nutrient-rich produce— and the struggling farmers who have taken the harder road to agriculture production by refusing to subscribe to the agribusiness model for cash-farming.

Please read on and sign this... share it with your email book and show our leadership that, like public television, some things are better left pure and strong not tainted to allow exploitation.
thanks


BEGIN FORWARD>>>

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) needs your immediate help to stop Congress and the Bush administration from seriously degrading organic standards. After 35 years of hard work, the U.S. organic community has built up a multi-billion dollar alternative to industrial agriculture, based upon strict organic standards and organic community control over modification to these standards.

Now, large corporations such as Kraft, Wal-Mart, & Dean Foods--aided and abetted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are moving to lower organic standards by allowing a Bush appointee to create a list of synthetic ingredients that would be allowed organic production. Even worse these proposed regulatory changes will reduce future public discussion and input and take away the National Organic Standards Board's (NOSB) traditional lead jurisdiction in setting standards. What this means, in blunt terms. is that USDA bureaucrats and industry lobbyists, not consumers, will now have more control over what can go into organic foods and products.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 20, acting in haste and near-total secrecy, the U.S. Senate will vote on a "rider" to the 2006 Agriculture Appropriations Bill that will reduce control over organic standards from the National Standards Board and put this control in the hands of federal bureaucrats in the USDA (remember the USDA proposal in 1997-98 that said that genetic engineering, toxic sludge, and food irradiation would be OK on organic farms, or USDA suggestions in 2004 that heretofore banned pesticides, hormones, tainted feeds, and animal drugs would be OK?).

For the past week in Washington, OCA has been urging members of the Senate not to reopen and subvert the federal statute that governs U.S. Organic standards (the Organic Food Production Act - OFPA), but rather to let the organic community and the National Organic Standards resolve our differences over issues like synthetics and animal feed internally, and then proceed to a open public comment period. Unfortunately most Senators seem to be listening to industry lobbyists more closely than to us. We need to raise our voices.

In the past, grassroots mobilization and mass pressure by organic consumers have been able to stop the USDA and Congress from degrading organic standards. This time Washington insiders tell us that the "fix is is already in." So we must take decisive action now. We need you to call your U.S. Senators today. We need you to sign the following petition and send it to everyone you know. We also desperately need funds to head off this attack in the weeks and months to come. Thank you for your support. Together we will take back citizen control over organic standards and preserve organic integrity.

Katrina +4

Well its four days since America's worst natural disaster and we've passed the foreboding 72hr deadline for saving lives.... food has spoiled, water has soiled, the electric grid is foiled and it will has now become a life-threatening situation as survivors run out of life's essential requirements. This rescue operation is turning into a massive post mortum. So how has the most powerful nation on earth handled this catastrophe so far? Yesterday the government took some 1500 local police and safety offices off search and rescue to forcibly stop the looting.... hello?... what difference does a TV make when you are dead? The entire city is under water and it isn't going to drain out.... it was below sea level. New Orleans is gone. Lets not concern ourselves about some petty material possessions while good citizens die waiting to be rescued? Priorities!

What has the all important Homeland Security Department done?... the uber-bureau designed by the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11—claimed to "streamline" our forces in the event of a disaster like a terror plot or natural phenomenon (say Katerina?) ... FEMA, who once held a cabinet position to ensure a close connect to the Commander-And-Chief, now relegated to a back seat in the anti-terrorism-focused Homeland Security Department, has had its infrastructure gutted by the Bush administration.... and is now in the cross-hairs of the media's scapegoat squad... its all their fault... ... What about our leaders?

Well, President Bush waited until yesterday to swing on out from Crawford to take a look at the problems.... of course heading to the oil platforms first... then touring New Orleans and the Mississippi coastline. But even as thousands were dying... he saw it more fitting to give a little speech for VJ day- where he could plug the estate tax cut, the need for more troops in Iraq, and his social security reform.... Priorities

And Vice President Dick Cheney? He's still on vacation! (no doubt he's meeting with his secret energy task force to see how he should protect their assets at the expense of ours... raise the pump price and give us a scare— no doubt these meetings are to be top secret too!)

Meanwhile, the head of FEMA woke up Monday morning and knew America was facing its worst nightmare... He saw the reports of the hurricane growing in intensity from a category 1 storm as it rounded Florida... turning into a category 5 storm as it entered the hot waters of the gulf of Mexico.... he knew of the unprotected coastlines, of the repercussions of Bush's budget cuts in hurricane readiness and relief... he knew that guard troops and the necessary vehicular forces normally in-place were deployed to Iraq... he knew of the ill effects this administration's energy policy has had on energy emissions and how they cause the temperature gulf waters to rise... he knew of the dangers associated with the loss of natural buffers along the coastline due to the "infrastructure" necessary to service all the oil platforms and how these channels cut through the reed-grass coastlines that used to reach some 20 miles from shore have been reduced to a quarter mile in many places.... these channels, that act like a trail bike path cut up a hillside when a storm comes—channeling a rush of water and sediment down the hill or out into the sea... killing the natural ecosystem. He knew and he was worried. But his hands had been tied long ago by Bush's desire to "protect us from terror".

Meanwhile Bush slept soundly in Crawford... his oil buddies might suffer a temporary loss... but they'd just raise the gas price and claim it could have been less troublesome had we been drilling in the Arctic Natural Wildlife Animal Reserves or off the Florida coast or deeper in middle America... then they get a bunch of government contracts to explore and exploit fossil fuels from our nation, build those environmentally unsafe refineries they've desired for so long-- and get huge tax considerations and incentives too!

No, George W woke Monday knowing he could play off this little disaster as a springboard to insure America would pass his energy bills... His secret Energy council could jack the gas prices and he could instill enough fear in America to push through his plan to privatize our resources and make it seem like a good idea.... heck it worked with the Patriot Act after the Twin Towers fell! Bush woke Monday feeling like he had another disaster in the bag— to use as a launch pad for his agenda.

Priorities! He's got us off killing a nation's people, stealing their oil, and propping up a puppet government he can spin as "democracy" while at home.... our nation's people bear the hardships his policy and preferences have bestowed upon us—weakened infrastructure, limited resources, no plan for disaster relief, though that WAS the original purpose of the Homeland Security Department—Monday and Tuesday he went off making stump speeches for his new world order.... kinda like reading a silly kids book to 3rd graders as the twin towers fell. Priorities!

Our Homeland Security Department... the one we've been pouring billions of dollars into to make us better able to respond to trouble... to give us better command and control of our nations resources in the event of a catastrophe.... what have we got? a color-coded warning system, som metal detectors in airports and government offices, a staff to police subway terminals conducting random searches, video cameras for every local law enforcement agency so they can document peace rallies and church group meetings and protests and a very scary database that contains the names, contact info and leanings of every American from 14 to 80... and we've centralized all this information into the hands of a few very questionable few people... (*you look up John Negriponti's history... I wouldn't trust him to hold my dirty socks).... when one of our nations biggest cities is under 20 feet of water with thousands dead and dying.... no alert from our fancy christmas tree warning system was sounded, no distress from Homeland Security is sounded....

While police and fire departments across America have been pleading for better inter-department communication systems... so the police can talk to the fire department and area departments can talk to each other in case of a major disaster... Mr Negriponti and the Bush people have been buying databases, metal detectors and video cameras! They've been spending our money traveling across the nation stumping for increased authorization to invade our privacy.... Priorities!

Look at Wednesday's big news from our Attorney General—they uncovered a "terrorist" plot in San Francisco! Alberto Gonzales went on the air... not to alert America of the collapse of the levies and the subsequent drowning of New Orleans... no, he had more important things on his to-do list.... gotta talk about the "alleged" terror plot they nipped in the bud before it could materialize... justifying their eavesdropping techniques... their extreme violations into our freedoms... to catch a "would-be" terror threat..... the Attorney General saw it more important to scare us with possibility, rather than address reality!

Unfortunately for the millions whose lives are never going to be the same.... they have to be the canary in the coal mine to hopefully wake America up to the reality of our nation's troubles...

Bush, the leader that everyone has such supreme confidence in— is now being put to the test... Watch carefully loyal Bush fans... as the city of New Orleans fades into the sea forever... watch as thousands of our citizens spray "help us" and "no water" signs on their roofs while they wait in vane to be rescued. As they wade in waist-deep water, contaminated by hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals that were stored by the oil and gas industry in "safe" retention pools along the coastline.... watch as no mention is made of their heavy metals and dangerous molecular structures as they invade the wading "survivors" trying to find help from an infrastructure that has given lip-service to this disaster for years.—to an infrastructure hollowed out by troop and vehicle deployment to fight to secure something overseas... I think at last iteration, it was to create a democratic nation — a likeness of our own, in the middle east...

Meanwhile, our nation-building policy has made us unable to protect our own nation from adversity... watch as we slowly respond to the severity of this disaster... how only now, spokesmen for Bush are saying this could be really bad... in 1992 FEMA and a number of environmental scientists ran computer models of a hurricane hitting New Orleans... they are textbook narratives of what we are witnessing... and they have tried for years to ready for such a disaster... but since being relegated to a minor position in the new Homeland Security Department, Bush's and Negriponti's eyes have only been on manufacturing consent for
their terror agenda... not actually helping provide homeland security.

Wake up people... watch him struggle to be than man you all thought he was... he's got no plan for helping America... only exploiting it... watch him hang out on the ropes as he points fingers at one department after another... how he twists the lack of response into a call for reduced freedoms, increased police/miltary preparedness and a need to build refineries and drill-now! ... First he'll prop up the energy prices to scare us, then he'll speak of increased oil drilling.... not alternative energy... he is looking out for his oil interests... not his citizen's interests... watch, listen and learn. We are the smartest nation on earth yet we still run on fossil fuel?

Our collective inventive/creative genius has changed every aspect of the world around us dozens of times since the advent of fossil fuel.... yet we as a people haven't been able to figure anything better than a system of depleting a non-renewable resource to produce pollution generating machines who's very existence is helping to kill the planet! And we don't question why? Now Bush, the Oilman President, is directing our nation into bankruptcy- international turmoil and unprecedented corruption- and who's really behind it? The Oil and Fossil fuel industry... the "secret" energy task force who staffs the governmental regulation bureaus- who establishes the regulatory policy for their own industry- who determines their own penalties, fines and clean-up responsibilities.

time to establish real priorities... time to wake up and take political action... write the congress, demand accountability demand credibility, demand truthfulness...

Wake up America! How much more do these Homeland Terrorists have to do to get you to see their agenda? As thousands perish in Louisiana parishes, see how Bush steps to the plate... swings for the fence, and strikes out!

Now, lets all say a prayer for the dead and dying in in Louisiana and Mississippi... let us pray for the people in need and for the brave Americans who have gone to provide aid... and for the generous hearts who've opened their homes, hearts and wallets to help their fellow Americans.

Pat Robertson says Kill your Neighbor!

On August 22, 2005 Pat Robertson, leader of the Christian television network and self-proclaimed leader of 32 Million people world-wide called for the assassination of a twice-democratically elected foreign head-of-state because he wants unrestricted access to that nation's oil reserves. Please join me and remind Mr. Robertson of the Ten Commandments: I don't know about you... but it should be getting hard to stand up and be a Christian while condoning this behavior. If you REALLY do believe what you say and you value your immortal soul... then stand for the values you preach and speak up against this philistine.

'Thou Shall Not Kill.' and Thou Shall Not Covet, and Thou Shall Not Steal, and Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness and Thou Shall Not Have False Gods Before Me... Commandments 2, 4, 6, 8, 9,10— So what are you going to do?

Do you Keep Holy the Sabbath Day or are you Bearing False Witness as you recite sacred prayers! Looking the other way is harboring the criminal— a crime in God's eyes as well as Man's. Hold this mortal accountable for his actions here on Earth! What is your eternal soul worth?

Vocabulary Lesson

Before we continue to dismantle our language any further...
Lets look at some other words this nation's leaders seem
to have trouble keeping straight!

We have an environmental policy that opens forests for logging,
mountains for mining, rivers for polluting, plains for asphalting,
and lets pollution standards drop to levels before Gaylord Nelson
made Earth Day.... and we call it the CLEAR SKIES ACT!

We cut after school programs, drain our education budget,
gut our national coffers forcing States to find money from us
through other means... We treat our teachers like second class
citizens, we don't provide even marginal accommodations and
equipment for most of our nations poorest schools... while awarding
millions in fees to bussing companies.... and then incarcerating the
children as they don't fit into the suburbs they are bussed into....
and we call that LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND!

We call awarding millions in no-bid contracts to Diebold, Bush's
biggest campaign contributer and maker of the "paperless ballot boxes"
that were set to —reject errors— on rich white ballots causing the ballot
to bounce back til properly cast, but "mistakenly" turned to
—accept all ballots— for poor and democratic voting districts....
and we call that the FAIR VOTING ACT!

We enact sweeping policies to take our freedoms away...
allowing the government to invade our privacy... detain anyone
indefinitely with no access to lawyers, family or friends...
and we call it THE PATRIOT ACT!

We begin a war with a nation—first because it was alleged
to have had involvement in the September 11 attacks....
then to oust a mean dictator— then to find nuclear arms...
then to help them create democracy... now because we're too proud
to just back out.... and we call that PATRIOTIC!

We avoid calling this a WAR because then we'd have to abide by
the Geneva Convention and treat our "DETAINEES" with some
human decency.... instead we call them terrorists...
(people who carry weapons, wear no uniform, operate in secrecy,
answer to no specific chain of command, and commit random acts
of terror to create fear) - but we hire thousands of CONTRACTORS
who carry weapons, wear no uniform, drive unmarked vehicles,
answer to no chain of command, and commit random acts of terror
to create fear---- AND WE'RE THE GOOD GUYS??? and we're not
supposed to have our people abused when they are captured????

NOW we let a man commit treason and go unchallenged....
2 years ago—Karl Rove knowingly exposed an undercover agent
(Valerie Plame) working for our CIA, to punish her husband who
exposed facts that the allegations of Iraq's nuclear threat were false
and unjustified! AND WE CALL THIS JUSTICE!!!

I guarantee if it was a democrat who committed this act
they'd be swinging from a gallows pole!

AND because this administration thinks it gets more media milage
from Robert Novak than a lesser know woman reporter Judith Miller-
a loyal Bush Supporter... they arrest her instead of losing Novak
even though she had nothing to do with the article! She in-effect
took one for the team—and we call this POLITICALLY CORRECT!!!

We tax and jail our less fortunate for petty crimes while we let Enron,
Tyco, S&L Execs go free or with petty sentences... We let
Corporations enjoy powers or citizenship far beyond those of
actual citizens.... grant them unprecedented access to our legislators
in the form of lobbying...give them tax loopholes to allow them to
extort billions from paying what normal citizens have to pay every day...
We allow our legislators to act without ethics or moral standards...
awarding favors and contracts to contributers while accepting
all manner of favors in addition.... AND WE CALL THAT DEMOCRACY!

Sure- lets keep sending this stupid email around telling how some
priest in kansas thinks we have a funny way of twisting our language....

before we all beat our breasts about what great christians we are...
why not start asking the tuff questions like why are we killing
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians? Why are we going broke
paying for a war that seems to only benefit Halliburton and the
terrorists we call CONTRACTORS, why do we let an administration
commit egregious acts of incompetence and continue to operate
without some consequence??? why do we let Karl Rove continue
operate above our nation's laws while loading the offices of our
Public Broadcasting, Defense, Education, Environmental Standards,
Food and Drug, Media regulatory boards, school boards,
Appellate Courts, Supreme Courts.... with people fixed to preserve
his notion of a "FREE SOCIETY"

While we're at it since when did FREE SOCIETY become
synonymous with the RULING CLASS ELITE???

You wanna talk language misrepresentation watch your leaders!
Meantime please stop bringing God into this debacle... I don't think
he 'll like this when you chance to meet him at the end of times.

Ignorance Killed Easter Island- Are We Next?

Jared Diamond, author of Collapse, writes of Easter Island. Once, it was home to a thriving culture that produced the enormous stone statues that continue to inspire awe. It was home to dozens of species of trees, which created and protected an ecosystem fertile enough to support as many as thirty thousand people. Today, it's a barren and largely empty outcropping of volcanic rock. What happened? Did a rare plant virus wipe out the island's forest cover? Not at all. The Easter Islanders chopped their trees down, one by one, until they were all gone. Once the trees were gone, the civilization collapsed and spiraled into cannibalism. Trees were the only means to make the canoes used to fish for food. "I have often asked myself, 'What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?'" Diamond writes, and that, of course, is what is so troubling about the conclusions of "Collapse." Those trees were felled by rational actors-who must have suspected that the destruction of this resource would result in the destruction of their civilization. The lesson of "Collapse" is that societies, as often as not, aren't murdered. They commit suicide: they slit their wrists and then, in the course of many decades, stand by passively and watch themselves bleed to death.

Diamond continues. "The values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs over adversity."

Actually, the inhabitants of Easter Island were doubly unfortunate – when their
environment collapsed they had nowhere else to go. The example of Easter Island should be chillingly obvious; thanks to globalization, we on planet earth are as interconnected and isolated as the clans of Easter Island. Their fate may serve as a metaphor for a potential worst-case scenario awaiting us.

Hey but its only our children and their children who will suffer for our actions today. One has to wonder what will the children say of us and our edifices to excessiveness

Save the embryo, kill the planet.
Drainability not Sustainability.



ISBN 0670033375

Sensenbrenner's Fiction

While its getting hot and sticky here in Wisconsin- the real heat and stickiness is happening in Washington... and Representative, Jim Sensenbrenner, seems a major source of that hot air and stickiness.

I was raised a few blocks from Jim Sensenbrenner's Shorewood home... I used to walk past his house to Lake Bluff grade school... in fact as a child, I used to avoid stepping on the sidewalk divide lines in reverence to a man my parents supported... Today, this man is conducting an arrogant abuse of power- the likes of which our fine State hasn't seen since Sen Joe McCarthy became the scourge of Wisconsin history. I realize many of you receiving this may be fond of- and supportive of this man... and I grant you at one time, I thought he represented his people in washington.... after all- he is OUR representative!

So before you send me a courteous please remove me from this list response and return to your busy life, please take a moment to view the real life conduct of this arrogant, abusive, and dangerous person... who is OUR elected official... representing the 5th congressional district of Wisconsin, a BLUE state! For other, just send tis on to all your contacts.

For anyone to whom I am cc'ing this correspondence who has not watched the hearing last night, it can be found on www.cspan.org in the center of the page under Video/Audio with the heading:  House Hearing on Patriot Act Reauthorization (06/10/2005).

Watch this c-span coverage of Jim Sensenbrenner chairing a house meeting gathering information regarding the upcoming USA PATRIOT ACT reauthorization.

Look at the facts... not the news media spin. Watch the behavior and actions of this man with your own eyes... without editing, or bias, or media commentary- Watch how the United States is conducting it's business.

I urge you to write him a letter responding to his conduct and his attitude while residing as chair of this important and controversial fact-gathering session. Is justice being served?

sensenbrenner@mail.house.gov

This man deserves the same treatment as Sen Joe McCarthy... to be removed from office and remain another timeless reminder of what happens when the American Public is misled by the arrogant self-interest of a small ruling class.

As many of the people in the US during the communist witch-hunts of the 1950's would say, and as many of the citizens of germany up to and during Nazi rulership... "we didn't know any better". Well consider this another chance to become aware.

This is your country... so ask yourself, what have you done for it lately? There has never been a more urgent time to participate in the political process than now. With corporate control of media, legislature, the soon the judicial system, your financial, agricultural and entertainment lifestyles are being created for you, not by you...

While its easy to go on thinking otherwise, the facts are becoming widespread, and hard to refute. The arrogance some of our politicians display in the presence of the collective ignorance of our nation's upper-middle class is soon going to give way to a reckoning- likes of which will rival the failure of McCarthy's communist witch-hunt, and the realization of Hitler's abuse of power.

If you continue to render a blind eye to the FACTS, by choosing to watch, listen and read the "news" from corporate media giants like GE, Viacom, ClearChannel, Turner, Murdock, and Disney... or if you want to think PBS is still unbiased and a good place to hear both sides of the debate... then be warned that this was another wake-up call.

You are not going to learn about the issues that matter to you on television, radio, or newsprint that is holds its own interests before presenting facts... take another moment to bookmark the daily independent media news show on www.democracynow.org just look at the real news happening to your world... not this fiction about Michael Jackson, StarWars, and who Tom Cruise is dating.

Please take the time to learn the truth, then hold your leadership accountable for their actions. It is not acceptable to simply take what they are feeding you because it is cheap and easy.... unless that is your measure for quality of life?

Shoe on the other foot?

I'm really having difficulty coming to terms with what's happening in the united states right now.... I seriously can't believe anyone is able to support what's happening and have a conscience, or a true sense of morality.

This week this administration will tighten the noose on democracy to near stranglehold - ending filibuster and allowing the appointment of right-wing corporate leaning judges.... look what that means.... more of this....

30 yrs after the Vietnam conflict, Pham Thi Thuy Linh,11 uses her feet to do her mathe homework at the hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. Pham was born with no arms as a result of her parents exposre to Agent Orange. This year a US federal judge dismissed the class-acton lawsuit filed on behalf of 4 Million Vietnamese claiming War Crimes against US chemical companies for using Agent Orange during the war.



check this picture out... send it to your "conservative" friends and ask them if they think its okay for us to maim and kill and poison with reckless abandonment and have corporate-leaning judges absolve us of blame... so long as the stock market continues to give return on investments. Ask them what they think if/when other nations (like China) begin to do this to us....

What if the shoe were on the other foot? What would our leaders do if Vietnam poisoned us and created children like this... and their courts absolved them of wrongdoing?

Journalist Bill Moyer's spoke at a conference yesterday in Atlanta for the first time since retiring from PBS. Moyers refuted the allegations of Kenneth Tomlinson, head of PBS, that his program was biased... and went on to outline many facts that are not reaching the public through conventional media. Please take time to listen/watch to his public address on this link.
http://www.democracynow.org/streampage.pl

March Of Madness!

Hi Everyone,

Yes its almost spring and our lives are beginning to get very busy. In the last two weeks I
have had more days with multiple-conflicting events than days without!- how bout you?
Social calendar filling up faster than the price of gas at the pump? March Madness is upon
us, but what we need to realize is that THIS March Madness has nothing to do with
college hoops and brackets, but rather is a fight for our freedoms and a marginalizing of
our rights as citizens. This is the March OF Madness. Our nation's leaders are Marching in
new nominees for leadership roles faster than sportscasters are stumbling over
themselves to pick the outcome of the final four. New Justices, New UN Leaders, New
Ethics Committee Members, New Congressional Leaders, New Ambassadors in the Middle
East, New Rulers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine... New Heads of Corporations,
New Leaders of the FDA, New Supreme Court Justices, and hundreds of New regulations,
laws, mandates and "reforms" and New atrocities across the globe to be scuttled and hid
from our basketball-minded masses!

It is important that we keep focused on our duty as citizens in America, to participate in
the political process. That means we may have to adjust our priorities now and again to
fit-in important actions that help get our voices heard by neighbors and our elected
officials.

We are living in very precarious times... Judges who owe their loyalty to major corporations
and industries are again up for appointment to LIFETIME posts as adjudicators of our well-
being. It is not inconceivable that their ties to big business will affect their judgment. 20 of
these Judge nominees were narrowly refused two years ago by congress... now that the
conservatives control even more seats, these same "unacceptable" judicial nominations are
up again. Without your voice, they stand a chance of being successfully passed... with no
way to renege their seats as they turn our court systems in favor of big business and
against we consumers.

Don't remain silent and while companies like Enron and Tyco, big business' and their
shady banking partners get away with stealing billions of dollars from good citizens and
remain exonerated by a judicial system that is in-their pockets... don't let our leaders
insulate their cronies behind an impenetrable defense they call "democracy" Those same
cronies who boldly divert billions of dollars in off-shore accounts- free from taxation.
While we suffer to make up the balance of their Trillion Dollar Deficits! It's your country
too. Time is coming to defend it from the enemy- within.

Yes, don't sit back and watch March Madness Basketball —while the real March of Madness
happens all around you. The United Nations is being sabotaged by the newest Bush
appointment, US Ambassador to the UN, NeoCon dandy, John Bolton- who has repeatedly
denounced the viability of usefulness of the UN for years... now with the unilateral power
of the US behind him, he can singlehandedly castrate the very institution he has publicly
abhorred... and you won't see highlights of those games on any half-time report.

I hope you take time to participate in some of the many events that either are, or soon will
be coming to debate before our legislators - (Federal, Regional, State and Local). The few
minutes you spend now attending a local meeting does make a difference. The few phone-
calls you make to neighbors or legislators does make a difference. The time you take from
your busy schedule to attend events that educate you in alternative perspectives to the
rhetoric we are told is "news" - does make a difference.

It certainly does seem a good time to be alive for many of us... seems like we have much
to be happy about... great shows on tv, great movies in theaters, wonderful resorts to visit,
terrific vehicles to move about in, fabulous clothes to wear, wonderful clubs to be seen at,
sporting events elevated to near circus-like pagentry...I imagine the citizens of Rome felt
that way too- right up to their collapse. Don't let this artificial buzz our leaders call
"prosperity" lull you into submission... educate, activate, participate. Our children's future
is in the balance and we should feel obligated to do our best for them- as our parents did
for us and theirs before them.

No grandstands, no bleachers, no luxury boxes, no sidelines, its time to get in the game.

Happy new Year 2005

Happy New Year Friends,

I'm refreshed, renewed and ready to face a new year's fight for what is right... how bout you?

I'm nearly past a bout with my cluster migraines... (google the words and rejoice that you have had no knowledge-or affliction with this condition)- mine occur every two years for 30-40 days with dozens of 5hr hemispherical torture sessions. Fortunately this year, I found an actual remedy to my 14 year affliction in a couple non-western energy healing techniques - thank you Joelle and Holly 8^)

So- I am refreshed, renewed and refocused on the task at hand. Time to organize, educate and invigorate ourselves, our friends, our neighbors, families and foes... yes our foes... to we need to reach out and realize, retake and rejoice in our nation and what it truly stands for. Yes, the Residential Erection was not what any of us imagined... though we won our battle in Wisconsin, we lost the war in America. Yes there is an awful lot of good, sound evidence that this Erection was won through the use of some Erectile Enhancements in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico and Wisconsin... the Vote-agra was dispensed in the form of traceless electronic voter booths, pushy republican poll watchers (fluffers) equipped with wireless blackberry PDAs to record the votes- better than any exit poll ( I witnessed this first-hand in Milwaukee), and by Kenny Blackwell, the Florida Justice overseeing "Fair and Balanced" erection results, who had no conflict of incest in being co-chair of the Resident Bush campaign in Florida. The two brothers, both Bush Pionographers, who swore to deliver Ohio to Bush four years ago. The brothers who own Diebold and ES&S, the vote machine companies who sold Pimped-neocon-legislators to use non-verifiable voter booths because of the profilactic Powers of incorruptibility! Who needs a paper trail when we have a Secure Intercestnet Connection? ...... ball blah blah!

Yes it is good to get this out of our system... But more importantly, it is good to realize that the silver-lining that surrounds this black cloud-like next term of office - affectionately referred to as Resident Evil 2 - is that he did win. - and now (p)Resident Bush (the p is silent like the t in tsunami) -Resident Bush, who is a tenant in the White House -far worse than the one Michael Keaton played in the 1990 movie Pacific Heights ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100318/ ) has plans to infest- like rodents (er ROVEnts)- to every level of infrastructure in our society. These vermin need to be irradiated- or at least held in-check, no differently than the Orkin man would tackle that Pacific Heights home after Keaton was exterminated.

But we are human beings, not rodents (though I can see the confusion with the likes of Rove, Rumsfeld, and Rice). We are supposed to represent the pinnacle of evolution of our species on this planet. But I have to tell you, my Bees seem much more evolved than the majority or our voting constituency these days. Anyhow, we are human beings and we (despite the actions of Resident Bush and his Rove Pack) should take the high road of proper conduct in the face of adversity.

But this road is not a single-track trail with little room to pass... no, if we are going to outrun the masses who seem content to passionately pacify themselves on a steady diet of FOXTV, White House press briefs and Nascar races... a mass who is content to coddle themselves in the warm embrace of Jesus Christ our risen Savior and Lord- as told through his most prolific pastor Rev Jerry Falwell... contented by repeated rhetoric that after a measured number of views-becomes truth... then we need to work that trail, beat that path, and learn from our ROVEnt adversaries, how to lull the Pied Piper and his passionate pacified to sleep as they have done... in this last Erection.

One of the most powerful tools the ROVEnts and the Resident used in the last Erection was their Lexicon... their choice and use of words- and ideas. They effectively secured the words Patriot, Morality, Conservative, Commandment, Religious, Faithful, Leadership, Responsible, Righteous, Terror, and Evil... to their advantage. They distorted the factual definitions to their own actual definitions through a unified campaign of repetition and reenforcement and resolve.

It is now time for us to use the same technique to regain the true definitions... and regain the passionate pacified fold that was so easily led astray by the Resident and his ROVEnt Pied Pipers...

MoveOn is has returned from the holiday recess and is beginning its legislative wake-up campaign with a call to email your congressmen to tell them to resist the actions of the Resident and his ROVEnt administration.

Thursday, our nation's legislative leaders begin what is sure to be a difficult up-hill battle to help negate the effects of our power-abusive Resident Bush. Alberto Gonzales, the Calico Cat of Conservatism is up for nomination to replace John Ashcroft as Attorney General. Please speak out to your congressmen... empower them with your encouragement, pump them up to begin the resistance... for it is they who are the first line of resistance.... and we are the supply chain that helps keep them strong while in harm's way.

Also I encourage you to keep engaging in discussion and deliberation about these and all the other issues that will certainly be shafted to us by this administration during its 2nd term. I offer that it is best to not engage in sharp confrontation- though like my prior cantor- is fun... it is not very effective in swaying passionate pacifist opinion. Like meditation, you don't sit down one time and after five minutes- become a yogi master or bodhisattva... it takes repetition, rehearsal, refinement. So too your discussion will become more eloquent, more refined, and more effective... the more you practice it.

Education... make yourself a student of the issues... friend of the facts... learn through books, papers, web-quests and videos. Listen and learn... empower your discussion with knowledge and passion. Stay tuned... we've got work to do... and we're gonna get organized, enlightened and empowered together to begin to make changes - at home, locally and abroad. Everyone has something to offer... Everyone has a role to play. I'll be sending out opportunities to gather at my place and at others' to watch videos and discuss... to meet and plan actions, to come together for strength.... and to further our MoveOn ties.

I've attached my personalized portion of the Moveon petition below... take what you need, enjoy it, use it, repeat it... lets start to get on the same page with our lexicon... lets retake those words and teach the passionate pacified the correct definition of those words... and the correct way to honor our country. It's not really their fault that they can't see the truth... they've been played by the King of ROVEnts... the pied piper Karl Rove... lets take this technique and push it right back at his twisted sick criminal mind. Show him he has actually helped us... by awakening our sense of Patriotism... or Morality, of Chivalry, of Responsibility, of Leadership... and true Righteousness.