SHOES OFF, 3 OUNCES, QUART SIZE BAGS AND NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

I LOVE TO TRAVEL, BUT I HATE TO FLY SINCE all of the new rules at the airport. I hear "it makes us safer" from friends, when I complain about having to take off my shoes, no water, the opening of my bags at smaller airports and going through my stuff, etc. But I don't believe it makes me safer. I'd fly more if I didn't have all of these fear-based rules. I figure the planes were used once and next time, it will be something else. All of my personal flight annoying experiences aside, I think these requirements have no bearing on my safety from the likes of bin Laden. He wins. He has us all loopy with the air travel mess while he lives in a cave, I hear.

I have to fly this week to D.C. for a Darfur StandNow.org conference. Not looking forward to the airport chapter of my travels.

Now to the subject that got me thinking about safety, bin Laden wannabes and fear-producing comments by our famous President – nuclear power plants and what happened April 26, 1986. This should have our attention more than airport shoe removal.

NUCLEAR POWER IS LESS POWER. NOT A GOOD INVESTMENT.
LET’S TAKE THE LONG VIEW OF NUCLEAR POWER.
We can call it “power” but it does the opposite of empowering us. Thank you HBO for opening my eyes. I never could understand the fascination with the “reality shows” like “Survivor”. I wonder if the people who live in the radiation of Chernobyl would be entertained watching make believe and contrived “life experiences” of such “shows”. If reality and courage are of interest to you, read on.

ANYONE who (and that includes the US government’s administrative and legislative branches) considers nuclear power as a source of energy for our energy needs today and in the future - needs to see the show that I saw today on HBO. You would get a visual dose of what the people have been living with and dying with as a result of Chernobyl – the nuclear plant breakdown. A child with a basketball size external tumor on his buttocks, another child with the tumor grown off his head, the same size. Babies abandoned by their parents with deformities as a result of the radiation of this nuclear power plant. “The event” happened April 26, 1986. The show documented Belarus, Minsk, Gomel and other areas affected by the breakdown and radiation that turned human beings into “guinea pigs”. All it would take is for someone like Osama bin Laden to make this happen at one of our nuclear plants if not an accident. Since April 26, 1986, congenital deaths increased 250%. One hundred and fifty miles from Chernobyl is radiation contaminated. It is the world’s most contaminated place.

Chernobyl Heart – The HBO show
On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear accident in history occurred when a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Sixteen years later, award-winning filmmaker Maryann De Leo took her camera to follow the devastating trail this radiation left behind in hospitals, orphanages, mental asylums and evacuated villages. Winner of the Academy Award ® for Best Documentary Short.

The Synopsis of Chernobyl Heart
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/chernobylheart/synopsis.html

Interview with Maryann De Leo
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/chernobylheart/interview.html

Notes I took while watching Chernobyl Heart
In Gomel, which is 50 miles from Chernobyl, 15% to 30% of the babies are born “normal”. That is a staggering statistic. And we don’t know really how many of the normal babies carry genetic affects to pass on to their babies. Radiation affects the immune systems not only of the living but those in the womb.

Vesnova Mental Asylum was visited. Some residing there are not mentally ill, just abandoned by parents and a country’s unwillingness to afford them operations that could alleviate their health problems. In Gomel, Abandoned Babies Home introduced us to a four year old that is the size of a four month old.

Tumors not only grow on the outside of the bodies, but are in the digestive tract, heart, liver, kidney, lungs and thyroid. Fluid on the brain is another result. Infant mortality rate in Belarus is 300% higher that the rest of Europe. In a Minsk hospital, we learn that 7,000 people will die because there is no money for the needed heart surgeries. Three hundred dollars is the cost of a heart operation that puts a patch on the inside of the heart to fill up the holes. But $300 is an unsurmountable amount for the poor families of the region. Less than 300 heart operations will be performed a year and without this operation the survivors will die in 2 to 5 years.

7 MILLION people continue to live in contaminated regions of Belarus, Russia and northern Ukraine. 99% of Belarus is contaminated with radiation levels that are EXTREMEly high.

The Chernobyl radiation traveled as far as Sweden, Wales, and Alaska, according to the HBO show.

Map
http://library.thinkquest.org/3426/data/introduction/location.html
More maps of Chernobyl and its surroundings at this link (see lower left of the page of the above link):
* map-1.gif: Map of Northern Hemisphere showing where the radioactive cloud travelled by May 6, 1986
* map-2.gif: Map of the entire Ukraine
* map-3.gif: Map showing the major defense industry facilities in the Ukraine

This link is where the information below is from:
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/chernobyl_disaster/medical_impact.462.html

"We are now seeing genetic changes, especially among those who were less than six years of age when the accident happened. These people are now starting to have families, so we are witnessing the effects of the disaster move to the next generation.’ The silent killer, radiation, is threatening the gene pool and the future of the people”.
(Dr. Vladislav Ostapenko head of Belarus’ Radiation Medicine Institute)

Belarussian doctors identify the following effects from the Chernobyl disaster on the health of their people:

* 100% increase in the incidence of cancer and leukemia
* 250% increase in congenital birth deformities
* 1,000% increase in suicide in the contaminated zones
* 2,400% increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer
* “Chernobyl AIDS” is the term doctors are using to describe illnesses associated with the damage done to the immune system by the effects of the radioactive material “strontium”. It is also a contributory factor to the increase in the number of cancer cases as a result of damage to the body’s immune system.

The extraordinary increase in the number of ... illnesses can be associated with the exposure of the population to the aggressive radioactive particles released by the Chernobyl explosion. The biggest health threat is caused by the incorporation in the human body of caesium, which modifies the heart and kidneys and enhances the chance of innate diseases by influencing the hormonal relationship in the mother-foetus-placenta system. A change in the hormonal status of the mother-foetus system leads to increase of pregnancy length, complications with birth & after birth development of the child.

Countless lives in the Chernobyl affected areas have been destroyed by ill health. What we are witnessing is the slow erosion of a nation’s health. Scientific research shows that the people are faced with soaring levels of infertility and genetic changes, affecting the very future of their race.

Regional Children's Hospital
Their mortality rates already outstrip their birth rates. According to the UN, seven million people are affected, half of whom are children. In Belarus alone, 90 per cent of children are deemed to be victims of Chernobyl. A general increase in morbidity from non-oncology conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory conditions now emerging, are adding to the general decline in health of the people living in the affected countries. It is difficult to get a true assessment of the impact of the tragedy on the health in the three affected countries; data from experts and health professionals from the region are not always believed by their counterparts in the West. This is partly because many regions in Chernobyl find it difficult to attract doctors to work in contaminated areas because of their knowledge of the possible dangers, isolation and lack of proper facilities.

SECRET DECREE
Many patients in remote parts of the zones are unable to receive medical treatment because they are too poor to travel to the nearest hospital, which is often up to 100 kilometres away. The problem is compounded by a secret decree which was passed in 1988 in Moscow, banning doctors from naming radiation as the cause of illness or death. Bearing in mind this culture of control over information, Chernobyl Children’s Project - Ireland, CCPI, salute the courage of those medical and scientific personnel who have risked revealing the truth. It has not been in the interests of some that the true health toll be known. In Belarus the computer files holding the health data on all accident victims simply disappeared.

Because of severe damage to the immune system, there is deep concern for the body’s inability to fight cancer cells.

The Accident at Chernobyl
The accident occurred as a result of the Soviet authorities’ insistence that on 25 April 1986 an experiment was to be carried out at the Chernobyl Power Plant. This experiment went radically wrong at 1.23 a.m. local time on 26 April when a number of fatal mistakes and procedural violations, including the withdrawal of control rods, led to a sudden power surge.

Within minutes, the reactor became highly unstable and the control rods were no longer able to balance and control the power surge. Although the station foreman gave the order to go into shutdown, his order came too late. Within four seconds, the power levels ran to 100 times its maximum rating for his kind of reactor, which led to a steam explosion blowing the roof off reactor number 4, which weighed 1,000 tons, as if it was the lid of a saucepan.

Three seconds later, with ruptured cooling system pipes and the control rods blown out, there was another explosion, during which the core of the reactor largely disintegrated. While the operators frantically pumped water into the remains of the shattered shell, it was to little avail because the reactor was now exposed to the air.
One more paragraph at
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/chernobyl_disaster/chernobyl_disaster.43.html

Social Impact - The Misplaced and Displaced Ones
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/chernobyl_disaster/social_impact.474.html

Economic Impact
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/chernobyl_disaster/economic_impact.471.html

Envionmental Impact – Death of the Land
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/chernobyl_disaster/environmental_impact.469.html

Chernobyl Sarcophagus – The end or just the beginning?
“The next Chernobyl will be Chernobyl itself”
(Russian Scientist Professor Chernosenko)
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/chernobyl_disaster/the_chernobyl_sarcophagus.470.html

What You Can Do
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/what_you_can_do/what_you_can_do.444.html

What “Chernobyl Children’s Project – Ireland” does
"If our tears do not lead us to act then we have lost the reason of our humanity, which is compassion."
(Dalai Lama)
http://www.chernobyl-international.com/what_we_do/what_we_do.482.html
When reading about Mountain Removal in the Appalachian Mountains for coal, I read that we believe in the USA, including some of our Presidential candidates, that we must use nuclear power plants to fulfill our need for electricity in the USA.

What do you think of that?

Sometimes the price of convenience is too high.

Our community is in an extremely windy location and is studying the use of wind power. At least Osama bin Laden would have little reason to blow up a wind mill. A private school in my town, erected one windmill on its campus a couple of years ago that provides the entire school’s energy needs for them. They figured the cost of the one windmill over time would pay for itself…I think it was in ten years. Anyway, you get my point. I hope. Keep hope alive by spreading this story to your family and friends. The silence of good people is a bad thing. Let's be a humane human race.

If not you, if not me . . . then who will speak up?

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Storm Over Massachusetts Windmill Plan
Plan For Nantucket Sound Wind Farm Raises Debate
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/26/sunday/main560595.shtml

THE LIKES OF BLACKWATER, THE OTHER US MILITARY BRANCH

The privatization of our US military is not a good thing. Jeremy Scahill wrote: Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army and debuted on the New York Times best seller list at number nine. Blackwater with a no bid contract was hired by the US government to work in Iraq. We could withdraw our troops from Iraq and our tax money of millions and billions of dollars could continue to pay outfits like Blackwater to fight in our name in Iraq. This is big business. And George is nothing if not a supporter of big business.

Blackwater represents us.

In the Google window type: Blackwater kills in Iraq
and have a plethora of links.
Here is one:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/iraq/2003893130_iraq20.html

The time is past due to take up the metaphorical sword. We are losing our government. It is time to not fear appearing radical or civilly disobedient. It is our espoused values that we risk losing if we sit back and let our elected politicians run our country into the ground. Freedoms are continually in need of our nurturing and our control. Freedom endures only when it is on our watch. Not when we entrust it to someone the likes of Dick Cheney or George W Bush. Freedom is not on the march in the Divided States of America.

A leader of free people would stand up or stand down when it comes to the plight of the people in the path of hurricane Katrina. A leader of free people would see the potential of a troubled land when ropes made into nooses are hung in a tree to send a message to black US citizens in a school yard. A leader of free people would not take his charges into a war without a plan and equipment that will protect them. A leader of free people would not take the military into an invasion that was based on lie after lie. A leader of free people would not pretend lies were truth and expect a nation of free thinkers to believe him. George W Bush is not a leader of free people. George Bush is an oppressor. George Bush thinks “We the People” are to be manipulated for his personal reasons. George Bush surely doesn’t get it. Which segment of Americans is he the President of? He is afraid of speaking in a group that has not been vetted. I would not be allowed in his audience. And yet I am his audience.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf4-xuq-Ypo

Bill Moyers
“…The strong took what they could and the weak, what was left…”
Please, take the time to listen to this speech.

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We have the army, navy, marines, air force and national guard. And then there is our private military. Your tax dollars buy this private, corporate-owned military. And yet, they are not held accountable.

BLACKWATER - from our other military branch

http://www.blackwaterbook.com/news/2007/01/about_blackwate.html
About Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7244128
Congress Hears from Killed Contractors' Families
The mothers and widows of the workers have filed lawsuits against Blackwater, the company that hired them.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqM4tKPDlR8

The Nation's Jeremy Scahill describes the rise of Blackwater USA, the world's most powerful mercenary army.

Writing about Blackwater:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051010/scahill

http://getunderground.com/underground/features/article.cfm?Article_ID=2188

http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20070330_jeremy_scahill_on_soldiers_of_fortune/

BETRAYED BY BUSH AND CONGRESS

Senator Sam Brownback (R) gave a history lesson today in the Senate, complete with several maps about Iraq. It was a good lesson for a congressman. Senator Joe Biden (D) followed him with an emotional delivery why he agreed with Brownback although both Brownback and Biden said it was not in their Presidentail candidacy’s best interest to be working together to come up with a political solution for the mess we got ourselves into by invading Iraq. But that is what they were presenting, a political solution to Iraq. Personally, I thought Biden really did a good job extending his Presidentail campaigning on C-span with this plan. I couldn’t vote for Brownback as President, but these two made me feel better about being a USA citizen. They made sense. They didn’t sound brainless. And I have heard nothing close to this sanity from Mr. Bush, the President of the Divided States of America.

A link to an article on Biden and Brownback’s bill:
http://biden.senate.gov/newsroom/details.cfm?id=283817&&

Today, there was a tie, 47 to 47, to start bringing our troops home. Our Rhode Island US Senator Jack Reed and Carl Levin worked together on this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092100134.html

Bush ignores us. Congress ignores us. And yet type in http://www.senate.gov/ And you will find a page that celebrates the US Constitution that is titled “We the People, Celebrating the Constitution” and begins with this:

Written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and in operation since 1789, the United States Constitution remains a vital and living document. Having been strengthened by amendments, the Constitution serves as both guide and protector of U.S. citizens and their elected officials. To encourage all Americans to learn more about the Constitution, Congress in 2005 established Constitution Day, to be celebrated each year on or near September 17th, the date in 1787 when delegates to the Convention signed the Constitution.

I feel like I am living a time warp. Our President says “freedom is on the march” and that he wants to bring democracy to others around the world. However everything about him and his focus - has done nothing but chip away at our democracy and our liberties. Freedom – use it or lose it. We need to get angry at the undermining of our
once Constitutional rights and let it motivate us into active engagement. While we are not paying attention – we are losing our Constitution. The Patriot Act is our new Constitution. Our US government has thrown out the Geneva Convention.

“The Third Geneva Convention was convened in 1929 and resulted in specific protections for prisoners of war. The Fourth Geneva Convention was signed in 1949. This convention reaffirmed the requirements of the first three conventions and provided protections for civilians during wartime.” *

Requirements of the Geneva Conventions as they relate to the treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs): *http://usmilitary.about.com/od/deploymentsconflicts/l/blgenevaconv.htm

The Constitution made “We the People” partners of this country's government. An equal partner. But this administration doesn’t care what we think. And congress is betraying us, too.

I feel like screaming.

Bush is a disaster. I am embarrassed that he is President. I detest him. He has taken this country into debt. We have financed this Iraq invasion by borrowing from a country that historically has a record of oppressing its people and imprisoning and torturing those that are dissidents. China. And yet Bush said yesterday that he receives an A for not raising our taxes. But he has taken us so far in debt that we are weakened as a nation.

But no one talks about that. My brother made t-shirts when George HW Bush was campaigning for President and the shirt said a GHW Bush quotation “Read my lips, No New Taxes”. George W Bush is just like his father in this. NO NEW TAXES, but Billions of new dollars of debt. That’s what we’ve got.

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Bush may boost spending request for Iraq war

Reuters
Friday, September 21, 2007; 12:10 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration may increase the amount of money it is seeking for the Iraq war for the 2008 fiscal year that begins October 1, the White House said on Friday.

The White House outlined a request for around $147 billion for fiscal 2008 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the administration is reviewing those figures and is considering giving Congress an updated request.

"I would expect it to be higher, I can't tell you what the number will be," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

The Washington Post has reported the administration may increase its request by up to $50 billion, which would bring the total request to nearly $200 billion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092100643.html

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War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says

By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 22, 2007; Page A11”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102074.html

BONDS THAT TRANSCEND ARE SPIRITUAL ONES

I love my son. I miss my son. This is for him…
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoEil40qZA

I Will Always Love You

My son was adopted when he was eleven years old. The connection that I have always felt for him is innate and undeniable. I want to be in his life. I am here. I hope that one day he will find me someone that is vital to him. I carry his heart in my heart.

Adopted children all have a journey that is a reaction to having been released or abandoned by their birth parents, especially their mothers.

I never wanted children. In sixth grade I told my mother this. It was a response to what I read in the Weekly Reader, a children’s type of newspaper. The world just didn’t seem a fair place to bring a child into. My son entered my life. Then he entered my heart. I answered LIFE by making the move to be his mother. It hurts so much to be held at a distance. But apparently I am where I am to be. I have done the best that I could, all things considered. I have no regrets.


Children
By Khalil Gibran

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, "Speak to us of Children."
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.


Love
By Khalil Gibran

Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them.
And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."

And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Gibran's Works:
http://leb.net/~mira/works/prophet/prophet.html

Khalil Gibran (1883-1895) was born on January 6, 1883, to the Maronite family of Gibran in Bsharri, a mountainous area in Northern Lebanon. Bio: http://leb.net/~mira/bio/1.html

THE KINDEST THING YOU CAN DO

Is just pull out, regarding Iraq and the USA presence there. Not my words, but Bill Maher's. If you tend to think President Bush has been the wrong President these last seven years, this youtube will ring some realism bells for you. For those who at this time, still stand by the wisdom of Mr. Bush, will not find sense in anything said:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcJohfS4vTQ
Bill Maher's New Rules "Tanks but no tanks"

P.S.
DUBYASPEAK QUIZ

"It has been said that Dubya's only real competition in the category of 'politician with dubious diction' is former VP Dan Quayle in George HW Bush's administration. Let's see if you can tell the difference between the two. For each question, choose the quote that Dubya said."
Link to quiz:
http://www.dubyaspeak.com/quiz_old.phtml

CHOOSING A PRESIDENT WHO ACTUALLY CAN LEAD

IN A POSITIVE WAY, nationally and internationally - the next election is going to be extraordinarily important. And the next President will need to figure out how to pay for the debt left by the Iraq invasion. All those things like education, national health care, infrastructure, foster care, care for the homeless, the poor, those in prison ... that we said we couldn't have or do because "how would we pay for it?" - could have easily been paid for with the money that we have now as debt due to the Iraq invasion. Amazing things could have been done with that money. But we would only go into this kind of debt for war. Not for things that would have made our country stronger and healthier internally and socially. We have issues with investing in the overall health of the nation's people, but naive about the money invested in war.

The cost of the war is updated continuously at:
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html

It was $453,032,694,830

at 1:15 a.m. September 20, 2007

I appreciated the PBS show that gave me backgrounds of George Bush and John Kerry before the 2004 election for President. When I consider what has come to pass with George Bush as President, I often think of the show. As written at www.pbs.org : Culled from more than fifty interviews with the candidates' families, friends, colleagues, and political adversaries, "The Choice 2004" takes a hard look at the character, experience, and worldviews of Bush and Kerry and illuminates defining moments of their lives with rare archival footage. The program also examines both candidates' decision-making on going to war in Iraq.

"If you want to know who George Bush is, look at the Iraq war," journalist Bob Woodward tells FRONTLINE. "I asked him, `Do you have any doubt?' And I asked it in the starkest terms. Because Tony Blair had said when he gets hate mail saying `My son died in your war, and I hate you,' Blair said publicly, `You can't get letters like that and not have doubt.' I read that to President Bush in the Oval Office, thinking he might even say, `Well, you know, Blair's got a point.' He just ignited and just said, `No doubt. I have no doubt.'"

Kerry's response to the war in Iraq has been more nuanced, and he has spent a great deal of time on the campaign trail justifying why he voted for the president's Iraq resolution and now opposes the war.

"Today, what's prized, what all of us sportscasters who cover political campaigns want, is a message. You know, give me the ten-second sound bite over and over. Don't deviate," says Kerry's former chief counsel, Jack Blum. "John Kerry knows enough to know that the world is not a sound bite world. He is always tempted to give you the nuances that he knows. And to tell you that the problem is much more complicated than you think it is. And to worry about that complexity. And maybe that is his biggest single weakness as a candidate."

It was during America's war in Vietnam that the first differences between George W. Bush and John F. Kerry began to emerge. Dan Barbiero, Kerry's roommate at Yale, tells FRONTLINE why Kerry signed up for Vietnam despite his opposition to the war. "We grew up believing that our obligation was to serve our country when called on. I mean that really was a lot of it. It sounds really corny. But that's what we believed."

Two years later, George W. Bush needed to decide what he would do. His Yale classmate Roland Betts tells FRONTLINE, "By the time 1968 rolled around, everybody in the class of '68 was trying to figure out (a) how they felt about Vietnam, and (b) what they were going to do about it. Is this something that you wanted to be a part of? Did you feel that you had to be a part of this? And I think for a lot of us, the decision was, `No.'"

Bush served but avoided going to Vietnam by landing a coveted position in the Texas National Guard. Former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes tells FRONTLINE, "I made a call because a friend asked me to allow young George Bush to be considered for the National Guard. His father was a congressman. And that would be the ... reason probably, that I made the call." [Editor's Note: Barnes is involved in raising money for the 2004 Kerry campaign.]

Bush relished his stint with the Guard, where he had been trained as a pilot. "I think he was on a high at that point," says close Bush friend Doug Hannah. "He was a pilot, he was flying…and clearly enjoyed the aura of walking around in a flight suit and being a flyboy. He was pretty proud of himself."

Following the Vietnam War, Kerry—now decorated with three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star—would achieve national attention as an anti-war activist, testifying in 1971 before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and famously asking, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Kerry would attempt to build on his notoriety with a run for national office. "The Choice 2004" highlights his first congressional campaign. One month before the election, Kerry led polls by a two-to-one margin. "John's campaign was like the Dean campaign," says Tom Vallely, then director of the campaign's field operations. "We just had sort of the divided country, and a lot of people with John." But the editor of the local Lowell Sun newspaper would turn the tide with an anti-Kerry campaign.

"Day after day, they…printed full-page editorials that were treated like hard news about John Kerry in Vietnam, John Kerry the carpetbagger, John Kerry the radical, John Kerry being arrested," says David Thorne, Kerry's closest friend and former brother-in-law. Perceived as a carpetbagger who tried to exploit anti-war sentiment for his own political gain, Kerry was rejected by voters in Massachusetts' fifth district.

In 1978, Bush would also run for Congress. And like Kerry, he would lose his first campaign. Kent Hance, who won the race, tells FRONTLINE, "[Bush] wasn't as much of a creature of West Texas as I was. He had been at Andover, and he had been at Yale and Harvard. And with the people in that district, they felt like people in Yale and Harvard had made a lot more problems for them than they'd ever solved."

"The Choice 2004" continues as Bush and Kerry return to politics—this time successfully.

Bush had helped guide his father's winning race for the presidency in 1988, in part by recognizing the power of the evangelical Christian vote. Doug Wead, a campaign advisor to President George H.W. Bush in that election, tells FRONTLINE, "Sometimes, when he and I were talking or working over a memo, you could just see the light bulbs go off in his head….When we'd talk about the numbers and where they were, he'd just about salivate: `Wow, I could win the governorship of Texas with just the evangelical vote.'"

In 1994, Bush would run against a popular incumbent, Ann Richards. "I would say that George Bush's organization [was] the toughest I've ever seen," she tells FRONTLINE. "When I got up in the morning, I could be sure that Karen Hughes or the chairman of the Republican Party was gonna have something negative to say about anything I had done. And it was like a steady drip, drip, drip on a stone." "The Choice 2004" examines the hard-ball tactics the Bush campaign used to get him elected to the governorship.

Ten years earlier, John Kerry had also won office, as a senator from Massachusetts. In 1996, he would face a strong challenge to his senate seat from the state's popular Republican governor, William Weld.

Weld was a formidable opponent, and the race was a close one. Still, even after falling behind in the polls, Kerry would ultimately hold on to his seat. "We were landing pretty good punches in the '96 campaign," Weld tells FRONTLINE. "And [Kerry] reared back on his hind legs and punched back. He's not an effete preppie. You know, he does have the aristocratic background and manner of speaking. So you could be misled into thinking, `Here's a preppie. I'm gonna make mincemeat out of him.' And you'd be mistaken if you thought that."

Ultimately, "The Choice 2004" returns to the 2004 campaign and the issues that divide the nation and define the candidates, as well as the one issue that may decide the election: the war in Iraq and the ongoing threat of terrorism.

"[Bush and Kerry] come out of a severe split in the world they grew up in," says Nicholas Lemann. "And as a result, they represent very different policies for the United States government. Kerry will govern tremendously differently from Bush. Kerry will clearly try to get the United States into a more cooperative position with the rest of the world. Kerry seems to take government very seriously—he wants to serve, serve not just in the military sense, but in the government sense.

"I think Bush is more ambitious than Kerry," continues Lemann. "You feel that Bush really wants to change the world in a fundamental way. He really wants to be, you know, what they call a transformational president. If you want to be a really transformative president, you have to really push the edge of where foreign policy can go, both in foreign policy and domestic policy. If you're a moderate, you don't leave as big a footprint. I think this is a president who wants to leave a really, really big footprint."

To see the video of this PBS frontline show:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/choice2004/view/

BUSH WOULD DO BETTER WITH A GOOD DOSE OF DOUBT

President Bush has openly said repeatedly that he makes decisions and is never doubtful that he may have been wrong. Bill Maher refers to this Bush characteristic: "It must feel good to be 'dead certain' about everything. But it's not a virtue, especially when you're always wrong. Bertrand Russell said, 'The trouble with the world is the stupid are cock-sure and the intelligent, full of doubt.' Doubt is good. It suits human nature. Doubt is what makes you careful. Doubt is what makes you open to change. Doubt is why Eddie Murphy took a DNA test."

I just had a house guest for the weekend from Australia but she is living in Washington, D.C. as her husband is stationed in D.C. He is an officer in the Australian Army. As someone who works toward ending the genocide in Darfur, it is particularly interesting to me that he served in Rwanda in 1995, still a time of slaughter in Rwanda. She and I talked about Bush. It is always healthy to learn how others see our President. Admittedly I think Bush has not been a good President for the US. But the fact that how I see President Bush is quite the same as my house guest sees Mr. Bush tells me that his behavior translates clearly to other parts of the world in the same way that he translates in my mind. As I traveled Europe in 2005, I found the same true. And this was the first European trip that I have ever been treated with obvious disdain in Italy. Italy is a part of the USA coalition in Iraq, but the Italian people didn't choose to be a part of the coalition. Just their government did. While in my area at the Naval War College, a Greek military officer also shared with me his views of our President. As he said, he likes the American people, but separates our government's actions from us. He also said that "good sense" is often bypassed in the US military mode of operating.

As a part of the world, the US would be wise to care about the way we are viewed by other nation's and their people. We don't have to let it dictate our every governmental foreign policy but it would help us maneuver through our foreign relations. As is true in Iraq, the solution is not so much going to be achieved militarily, but through diplomacy in the world of governments and politics. And during the Bush administration days, diplomacy has been a foreign language that we can't speak.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vDmURpie_E
New Rules by Bill Maher September 7, 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eFHEiYwiNc
Bill Maher's opening September 7, 2007
Bush called Australia Austria while he was at APEC summit in Australia. Bush also called APEC - OPEC on the same trip.


President George W. Bush joins fellow APEC leaders for the official portrait Saturday, Sept. 8, 2007, in front of the Sydney Opera House. White House photo by Chris Greenberg.
Everyone has their right hand up to wave, except for George Bush. Maybe, he didn't hear the photographer's instruction to have everyone wave their right hand for the picture.
President George W. Bush, left center, joins fellow leaders during the APEC Leaders Retreat Saturday, Sept. 8, 2007, in Sydney, Australia. White House photo by Eric Draper.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/09/images/20070908-5_d-0092-2-515h.html
More pictures available from this White House website.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOWu8T8F5W4
Bill Maher September 7, 2007, Following the opening with Retired Colonel Larry Wilkerson of the U.S. Army discussing Iraq

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvT4adazeOE
Ralph Nader on Bill Maher's Real Time September 7, 2007
includes the issue of Chinese recalls

http://www.smh.com.au/news/apec/bush-leaves-australia-after-apec-summit/2007/09/08/1188783563918.html
article about George Bush in Australia at the APEC summit

THERE'S A WOMAN IN SOMALIA - SHE LIVES A LIFE SHE DIDN'T CHOOSE

SADE and her band are unique. She sings quietly but she is not shy about being a woman. “But then Helen Folasade Adu is a woman who has never had anything to hide. Born in Ibadan, Nigeria and raised in Colchester, Essex, where she moved at 4 after her English mother separated from her Nigerian father, she's spent her life trying to do what feels right, honest and true. Because by comparison nothing else has seemed as important. When she was growing up, Sade would listen to soul artists like Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway and Marvin Gaye. Singers uniquely attuned to the complex sensibilities of heartache and hope, who were skilled enough to create from those feelings, something lasting and transcendent.”

I hope you will listen and find her as moving and mesmerizing as I do…

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pSgee891zY
Sade – Pearl - Woman in Somalia, "Malaa gta ha soo degtee"
A singer with a conscience

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay6LCPrcBlU
SADE – Lover’s Rock

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN78mVK8sRw
Sade performing on a British TV show called "Wired".
Like Paradise and I Never Thought I'd See The Day
Also, Sade gives a short interview.

WHICH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE WILL RESPOND TO DARFUR

...because if I could know that, I would want to work for the success of that campaign. We are nothing if we take the stand that there is nothing that we can do to change the course of inhumanity to human beings. I am appalled when I read the narcissistic comments at youtube. On the other hand, I love youtube. Here is one reason why:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74foIhhlXbE

* “Does the way we respond to the genocide in Rwanda predict our response to Darfur?”

For more information about this film and to take action visit:
* http://www.mediathatmatters.org/MtM/mtmain.html

IF YOU WERE A STARVING CHILD WOULD YOU WANT ANYONE TO CARE

SOMETIMES WE NEED TO BE REMINDED
WE ARE HERE FOR ONE ANOTHER
Every Child Has:
The right not to starve
The right to education
The right to protection from abduction, exploitation and neglect

Every child deserves these fundamentals - everywhere and always ............................................... ............................................... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAlXBU7p_6w

http://www.savechildrennow.org/photos.html
photos

http://www.savechildrennow.org/solution.html
The Solution to Saving Children

WHAT DAY DID THE CONSTITUTION GET ANNULLED

? The Patriot Act has deleted our constitutional liberties. And there is a silent movement in our social acceptance to give up our valued liberties. Democracy is messy. If you want all the ducks in order you don’t want a democracy. You want a fascist government.

A man’s “house has been surrounded 24 hours a day, seven days a week. His phone is tapped and his internet access and telephone are sometimes blocked… All this for a man who has not been formally charged with any criminal offense.” Though from a feature article of Amnesty International about a human rights activist in China, everything noted here can also be done in the United States of America via the Patriot Act. *

George W Bush swore on the Bible at his two inaugurations that he would preserve the constitution. And yet when he campaigned he wouldn’t allow anyone into his “town meetings” unless he or she was a republican. Bush’s campaign used a manual on how to muffle protestors. Today, I learned that Hillary Clinton does the same in her campaigning and doesn’t allow people in her campaign events if they wear t-shirts with words or symbols on them her handlers want to censor. I don’t want “Free Speech Zones” or “stay away orders” - I want my constitution rights freed and given back to me. Now. Not after some politician tells me I can have them back. Now. I want a voice. China doesn’t allow her citizens a voice. Fascism is alive in China. And it is creeping across the facets of our American daily lives.

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry said “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death” as an ending statement in a speech. ** Perhaps that is too drastic an ideal for us to live up to. However, I feel we need to find a spine and put our First Amendment values back into our lives without reservations. We aren’t safe just because - we give up our freedom of speech or freedom of press rights, or because we give our government the right to search our homes without just cause or a court’s pre-approval, or give the federal government the right to use our emails and blogs to steal our constitutional rights. The Patriot Act gives the government the rights to do all of these.

Fear dictates what liberties we are willing and ready to give away.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xieOPvWLji4 Michael Moore’s “The Making of America” in cartoon format

ANDREW MEYER was tased today for asking questions on a college campus to John Kerry. He may have been out of order, but he broke no law, until he was told to shut up. Then his crime was to accept his freedom of speech as a sham and not something he had the right to expect. SALLY FIELD was censored by Fox in her Emmy acceptance speech. MEDEA BENJAMIN was removed from Hillary Clinton’s event because she wore a t-shirt about leaving Iraq. Bush has lied to us and broken the law, but he gets pass after pass. And no one is tasing him or censoring him.

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“And, let’s face it, if the mothers ruled the (world), there would be no God Damn wars in the first place,” Sally Field said.
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=CheY0jYXJjY

This is a video of the University of Florida Police Department using force on student, Andrew Meyer, asking a question of Senator Kerry. Meyer was arrested on September 17, 2007 for disturbing a public educational function and resisting arrest. The police did not inform him that he was under arrest and did not read him his Miranda rights but used a taser gun to control him”.

Tasers deliver a 50,000-volt jolt through two barbed darts designed to penetrate clothing. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070903/NEWS01/309030019/1056/COL02

“Amnesty International’s continuing concerns about taser use” article can be found at: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engamr510302006

http://youtube.com/watch?v=u1eyuH1-8A4 “Four Dead in Ohio” “On May 4th, 1970 - National Guardsmen opened fire on a crowd of unarmed students at Kent State University. Four students were killed and nine others wounded. Commemorating this sad day, at this link is an excerpt of the documentary, "Kent State: The Day the War Came Home" that includes interview with students and National Guardsmen who were there.” From: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/04/1342257

Fascism synonyms: repression, oppression, tyranny.
Antonym: democracy.
fas·cism or fas·cism
1. a system of government practiced by Benito Mussolini in Italy between 1922 and 1943 that was characterized by dictatorship, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of opposition, and extreme nationalism

2. any movement, tendency, or ideology that favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism

“The American system of government is founded on two counterbalancing principles: that the majority of the people governs, through democratically elected representatives; and that the power even of a democratic majority must be limited, to ensure individual rights.

Majority power is limited by the Constitution's Bill of Rights, which consists of the original ten amendments ratified in 1791, plus the three post-Civil War amendments (the 13th, 14th and 15th) and the 19th Amendment (women's suffrage), adopted in 1920.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU, mission is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees:

* Your First Amendment rights - freedom of speech, association and assembly; freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.
* Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.
* Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.
* Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.

We work also to extend rights to segments of our population that have traditionally been denied their rights, including Native Americans and other people of color; lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people; women; mental-health patients; prisoners; people with disabilities; and the poor.

If the rights of society's most vulnerable members are denied, everybody's rights are imperiled.” From: http://aclu.org/about/index.html

The First Amendment to the United States of America’s Constitution is: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” …Except since the Congress gave George Bush sweeping rights to delete the First Amendment rights.

The standard of United States Free Speech is in sinking sand. Repeal the Patriot Act and reinstate the U.S. Constitution.

* Interview With AIDS Activist Hu Jia http://www.rfa.org/english/news/2006/03/29/china_hujia/
*Patriot Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Act

** Patrick Henry’s Liberty Speech: http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/henry-liberty.html

THIS IS GOVERNMENTALLY SANCTIONED CRIME

Mountains, Schmountains, George Doesn't Give A Damn

You must learn this story. It is not a story that George Bush wants you to know. The coal industry doesn’t want you to know. And those are "just" reasons WHY you should make it your business to know the story. We are destroying the planet, the range of mountains called the Appalachian Mountains. Just like the Alps, the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachian Mountains are a treasure. And I mean the beauty of them as treasure.

The environment’s ecosystem is interdependent and interrelated. It doesn’t matter that we don’t care about the environment to our and its detriment. The land and the environment does respond to our treatment whether we choose to acknowledge the aftermath of our ways or not. We can continue to wreck the planet or make a conscious decision to find another way to electrify our convenient lifestyle. What if George is wrong about the environment?

WHEN LAND IS NOT SACRED we give ourselves license to disregard its integrity and stop honoring it. That is precisely what is happening to the Appalachian Mountains. I would like to believe that we would care about this story if we understood. I would like to believe that we could and would commit to renewable sources of energy and end this political and corporate madness of raping the land - that was stolen from people who believed that land is to be treated as sacred - so that we can have energy. The coal - that is extracted by wrecking the mountains, their forests and water - is supposedly cheap. But the cost to the land, forests, erosion and the quality of the lives of the animals, as well as the human beings who have called it home for generations is too high to bury this story at the same time that we allow the burying of the rivers, streams, hollows.

Please take the time to learn of this story. Please, respect the land and the people who live in the mountains, but also keep in mind that climate is changed when you mess around with forests and vegetation that is destroyed in such a violent way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRKd25ybVmI
Virtual flyover of a Mountaintop Removal Site
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpSDY6r2BVc
Google Earth that tells the story of 450 mountains destroyed by mountaintop removal.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPixjCneseE
Watch this video of mountaintop removal featuring Woody Harrelson.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6QckGPrQQQ
Appalachian Mountains from beauty to absolute ruin by the loosening of restrictions of coal blasting by President Bush.
This five-part series explores the environmental issues affecting the world.In the Appalachian mountains of the eastern United States, coal-mining families who have lived there for generations are now being driven out of their homes by the latest mining practice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2dueyHZ6tY
The process of mountaintop removal is explained in this excerpt from the award-winning documentary, "The Appalachians".
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww2F27BR6tM
Shows how mountains in KY and WV looked before and after mountaintop removal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoN6OoNuFZ4
An excerpt of the award-winning documentary "The Appalachians" by Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller focuses on the effects of MounainTop Removal (MTR) on the people of Appalachia. The directors, along with Sierra Club Productions are developing a feature-length documentary on MTR and the brave citizens who are fighting to put an end to it.

DOES PRESIDENT BUSH HAVE A MENTAL ILLNESS

…? That would offer some sense to the nonsense of his weird speech that painted the picture of Iraq as a democracy at the present time. And who are those 36 countries that are fighting and dying alongside the US troops and the Iraqi people? Bush said that the Iraq war is “just, right and necessary”. Yea, maybe, when wrong is right. Bush believes the only way to win the war is to declare the failure of his Iraq policies and deceptions - as success and truth. "Necessary" because he thinks he can save face for himself by keeping US troops where they are the “thumb in the dike”. He unleashed the forces innate in the region to live in civil strife as a version of Bush’s definition of democracy.

A man in a suit does not qualify you to be President. George Bush is walking and talking proof of that. If Bush was on trial in a court room, it would be feasible that his attorneys would recommend he have psychiatric tests to prove his ability to understand what the case was about and if he is mentally stable enough to withstand trial. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, he is President and he gets to decide right and wrong, not a court. The jury of his peers thinks he is wrong to continue to occupy Iraq, the country he recommended invading and bought the line that we would be greeted as liberators. Mission accomplished, right?

Tonight, Bush’s speech on why the USA must stay the course in Iraq indefinitely was a commercial for why the United States citizens must be “Dead Certain” why they are voting for a Presidential candidate.

“General Petraeus believes…General Petraeus recommends…General Petraeus says…General Petraeus expects…” all things he used tonight to convince us that The Decider in Chief is doing what The Decider was going to do no matter what anyway. The only reason we’re in Iraq is because Bush wants US to be there, not because General Petraeus wants it. But listening to Bush tonight, he would have you believe that he is doing what General Petraeus, the newly designated “Commander in Chief” wants. He’s either mentally ill, possibly suffering from grandiose illusions or he just has a bad case of low self-esteem and we are all players in his game. It may be that he continues on this course of madness because he is trying to sub-consciously prove to his Dad that he wasn’t wrong to preemptively go into Iraq after Osama bin Laden masterminded 911. Anbar apparently isn’t as safe as Bush told us. “Murder of US ally thrusts Anbar back to Iraq frontline”
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iBCQfCAOUt2UMB5_vjfF3C8zQviQ

Staying in Iraq doesn’t require patience as Bush asks of us. It requires us believing Bush’s take on the truth. To Bush success means avoiding failure by handing the mess he created in Iraq to the next President. As Chris Matthews said, “(he wants) to continue the war long enough not to be blamed for it”. The truth is we will never be able to leave Iraq if it means that Iraq must be stable first. How is democracy going to materialize from where we are? Bush could move to Iraq and run for President. The thing is he wouldn’t win the election there and there is no Iraqi Supreme Court that would throw it his way.

What is the purpose we are in Iraq? Are we defending the Iraq constitution? Are we defending the Iraqi government? With which groups in Iraq do we sign a treaty with?

Who is in charge? As Chris Matthews said “Does he (Bush) live in this world or just sell it?
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Chris Matthews talks to Eli Pariser from Move On and Markos Moulitsas of the Daily KOS about the Move On ad on General Petraeus.

Hurricane George lectured tonight. He gave advice to the US citizens, congress, service people, Iraqis, Iraq’s neighboring countries and the world. Does he really believe that he has clout to influence all of these groups and nations? Delusion.
1. a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of psychiatric disorder
2. a false or mistaken belief or idea about something

The bad news is that Bush thinks that he makes sense. He obviously believes that if he says the sky is rosy that we will believe it. And he has proven repeatedly that if he repeats something enough that we will begin to accept it as truth. Are we that mindless? If Bush was an illness, the diagnosis would be to operate and remove him from our body.

Our legacy is that the world sees who our President is and it reflects on us. Our influence in the world is damaged because of what this President has decided and we and the congress allow it. US RI Senator Jack Reed (my senator) said after George’s speech tonight that the course was going to change. That we would not “stand idly by” (a line that I have used when lobbying Senator Reed in his Rhode Island office regarding the Darfur genocide) and let this Iraq endless troop employment go on and on. I wish this would be true. Plans of deployment are offered by Senator Reed as well as by Presidential candidates Senators Biden and Obama. Go Obama!
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What is success and can you force it upon someone? Warring as a way to peaceful life dismisses other ways and political answers.

I answered an email today from the Obama campaign and added this in the comment window: I was very satisfied to see Samantha Power speaking on TV yesterday as the Foreign Policy Advisor for Obama for President. Is this any indication that as President Mr. Obama will also step up for Darfur? I certainly hope so. I met her in Newport, RI and she signed both of my copies of her book The Problem from Hell.

I am the lead organizer for the Providence, RI Dream for Darfur event Oct 27, 2007, 3:00 p.m.
It is called CARRY THE TORCH FOR DARFUR. I sent an invitation to the Chicago Obama For President office for President-elect Obama to speak at the RI State House at our event. I know there is a slim to none chance that he will do it, but I also have the Audacity of Hope.

I also invited US RI Senators Reed and Whitehouse and US Reps Kennedy and Langevin. We are already quite certain that James Langevin is going to join us for this important event.

The Torch relays have already taken place at the Darfur border in Chad, Kigali, Rwanda and New York City. The next international Torch Relay for Darfur will take place in Armenia. And it will move onto to Germany, Bosnia. Cambodia and China. In the US we are having Torch events throughout the country with the kick-off one taking place this past Sept 9 in NYC.
http://www.dreamfordarfur.org/

DO HUMANS HAVE RIGHTS IN DARFUR AND CHINA

?

China has themselves in the position of vulnerability. The 8-8-08 Beijing, China Olympics is a platform being used for more than one human rights focus group to ask China to do right or have unwanted attention. And since the Darfur activist groups have had some response from the Chinese government by their Torch Relay idea, another group is taking the Torch idea for shining a light on human rights abuses within China.
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Human Rights Torch Relay Begins in Athens

This Torch Relay is by a different organization than the one that I am leading a Torch Relay for in Providence, Rhode Island for October 27, 2007. Ours is with a coalition of partners from http://www.savedarfur.org/content, http://www.dreamfordarfur.org/content, http://www.standnow.org/ We are not asking for a boycott of the Olympics. But the group in the above video is asking for a boycott to bring attention to human rights abuses in China.

The China consulate requested a meeting with the Dream for Darfur's Jill Savitt because of the Torch Relays that we are planning not only across the United States, but in countries such as (on the border of) Darfur, Sudan, Kigali, Rwanda, Armenia, Bosnia, Germany, Cambodia and China. We are linking the Darfur genocide to China. We feel China has a responsibility to stop selling weapons to Sudan and use their leverage with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to allow the hybrid force of United Nations and African Union Peacekeepers on the ground in Darfur.

The following is taken from
http://www.dreamfordarfur.org/TorchRelay/USRelay/NewYorkTorchLighting/tabid/247/Default.aspx
On September 9, 2007, genocide survivors, Darfur advocates launched a symbolic Olympic torch relay in New York City.

Genocide survivors from Darfur, Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, and Rwanda joined Darfur advocates to launched the Olympic Dream for Darfur symbolic U.S. Torch Relay in New York on September 9, 2007. In a powerful ceremony, survivors shared their experiences and called on the international community to take action to end the genocide in Darfur. Director of Dream for Darfur Jill Savitt, Daoud Hari, a Darfuri survivor, and Olympic Medalist Amber Stachowski then lit the torch. Dream for Darfur, the Save Darfur Coalition, and STAND co-hosted the event.

Find a Dream for Darfur Olympic Torch Relay near you:
http://www.savedarfur.org/page/content/torchrun
Ben Prochazka (Save Darfur Coalition), Jill Savitt (Dream for Darfur), Daoud Hari (Darfuri survivor), and Amber Stachowski (Olympic Medalist) gather before lighting the torch

Darfuri survivors carry the torch to survivors of the Rwandan genocide

Genocide survivors and Joe Madison (MC and radio host) gather with the lit torch

Activists at the ceremony

Genocide survivors and Darfur advocates walk to the Chinese Mission with the torch

PRESS RELEASE

September 9, 2007

Genocide survivors, Darfur advocates launch symbolic Olympic torch relay in New York

Speakers, activists urge China to bring the Olympic Dream to Darfur

NEW YORK – Genocide survivors from Darfur, Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, and Rwanda today joined Darfur advocates to launch the Olympic Dream for Darfur symbolic Torch Relay. The torch relay will travel through more than 20 U.S. states to raise awareness about the atrocities in Darfur and to urge China, as the next Olympic host, to use its influence to end the ongoing suffering.

The torch was passed between the survivors from Darfur, Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, and Rwanda in Dag Hammerskjold Plaza – across the street from the Sudanese Mission to the United Nations. The torch was then carried to the Chinese Mission to the United Nations for a candle lighting ceremony.

“If the 2008 Summer Olympics mark China’s ascension as a world power, they must assume the responsibility that comes with such a position,” said Mia Farrow, an actor and prominent Darfur activist. “Instead of continuing to bankroll the genocidal regime in Khartoum, China should focus its efforts on brining the Olympic motto – One World, One Dream – to Darfur.”

The US torch relay has been organized in solidarity with an international relay that is traveling through countries historically associated with genocide. The international relay has already visited the Chad/Darfur border region and Rwanda.

Host cities across the country have chosen symbolic routes for the torch relay – many of which pass by memorials for past genocides and other crimes against humanity or locations that have a significant tie to China.

The Olympic Dream for Darfur Torch Relay aims to urge China – as host of the 2008 Summer Olympics and as Sudan’s chief diplomatic sponsor, major weapons provider, and largest foreign investor and trade partner – to use its unique position to lead the world in bringing an end to the ongoing violence and humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

Organizers of the torch relay will continue their efforts until there is adequate and verifiable security on the ground in Darfur.

To learn more about the torch relay, please visit www.DreamForDarfur.org.

For more information on the Save Darfur Coalition, please contact Allyn Brooks-LaSure (allyn@savedarfur.org) or Ashley Roberts (ashley@savedarfur.org).

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About the Save Darfur Coalition – The Save Darfur Coalition raises public awareness about the ongoing genocide in Darfur and mobilizes a unified response to the atrocities that threaten the lives of people throughout the Darfur region. It is an alliance of more than 180 faith-based, advocacy and humanitarian organizations. The coalition’s member organizations represent 130 million people of all ages, races, religions and political affiliations united together to help the people of Darfur. For more information on the coalition, please visit www.SaveDarfur.org. To obtain footage from the Darfur border region, coalition events, various interviews, and more, please visit the Save Darfur Coalition media gallery at http://media.savedarfur.org. All footage may be previewed in non-broadcast quality and may be purchased in broadcast quality by filling out the purchase request form provided on the site.

About Dream for Darfur – Olympic Dream for Darfur is a global advocacy campaign. Our goal is to secure protection for civilians in Darfur. Our strategy is to use the 2008 Olympics to focus attention on the special relationship between Sudan and China. China, host of the next Olympics, is uniquely positioned to exert real and consequential influence to help resolve the crisis in Darfur. For more information, please visit www.DreamForDarfur.org.

About STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition – STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition (www.STANDnow.org) comprises more than 700 high school and college chapters throughout the United States and internationally. STAND mobilizes students to take action to stop and prevent genocide by educating, advocating, and fundraising for civilian protection. STAND is the student division of the Genocide Intervention Network.

http://www.dreamfordarfur.org/NewsEvents/Media/PressReleases/NewYorkTorchLighting/tabid/246/Default.aspx

MULTIPLE PRESS RELEASES:

http://www.dreamfordarfur.org/NewsEvents/Media/DarfurChinatheOlympics/tabid/195/Default.aspx

"WE THE PEOPLE" CAN BE THE LEADERS WHEN OUR LEADERS DON'T LEAD

WE HAVE MORE POWER THAN WE USE

BE A HUMAN-RIGHT, NOT A HUMAN-WRONG