IF YOU'RE FEELING SICK AT THE MERE THOUGHT THAT VOTES WILL BE CAST FOR McCAIN and PALIN

THEN YOU AND I HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON

By the way, where was John McCain's patriotic flag pin? And where was the media flack about him not wearing one for the debate? Maybe, POW's aren't open to the haranguing that Barack received over not wearing a piece of medal on his lapel.

It is a mystery how anyone can cast a vote for these two. McCain and Palin. Especially after 8 years of a republican administration.
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From Cool Hand Luke ~ Uploaded by sandynroses
"What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach, so you get what we had here last week which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. And I don't like it any more than you men."

What we've got here is not only a recession of the economy but of intellect in the United States of America. If you have developed your intellect and are deeper than a shallow bucket, you are called an elitist with negative connotative implication.

What we have got here is people lacking minds that can apply critical thinking.

Our republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain graduated 894th out of 899 at the Naval Academy. He joked that Eisenhower - at his graduation - asked to shake hands with the lowest ranked graduate and if he, John McCain, had just done worse he could have shaken hands with Eisenhower.

If
McCain-Palin win this election, the same pool of people will be drawn from for cabinet positions and Supreme Court Justices and we will have two self-proclaimed, word-toting mavericks priding their way through left-overs. Left-overs of our shredded U.S. Constitutional rights and international credibility.

It has been interesting - the day after the debate. Because I have increasingly felt better about Barack's performance the day after. Not so much because of my internet perusing or listening to the pundits. Frankly, the pundits bother me. Their read on how it went only carries more weight than mine, because they are on the screen spouting off. But because what has stuck with me about what Barack said is better than how I was feeling during the debate. I wanted Senator Obama to stop being defensive on the economy and make offensive statements too. I wanted him to say the debt amount that we have been building up over the Iraq war waaaaaay before he finally said it in an almost passing way. It is the one time I cheered outloud when he finally said it. More could have been said about our HUGE debt to China and Japan. But, on the whole Senator Obama was carrying many layers of pressure on his shoulders and did a fine job.

I went looking for posts about the reaction from those outside the USA and came up with this one:
Spokespeople for Pakistan, China and Moscow Give Reaction to the Presidential Candidates

Here is a blog called England for Obama

Voices without votes ~ 9/27/2008 ~Around the World Bloggers React to Debate

The BBC has the entire debate on their website.

As does the cable sponsored TV station C-span

	From Friday, September 26
	Obama Campaign on Debate

While looking around the internet I found this
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From the producers of College Humor comes the wackiest family comedy of the year, an Alaskan hockey mom becomes Vice President.
Found at Teeth Maestro
Teeth Maestro is the blog of Dr. Awab Alvi, a Pakistani dentist practicing in Karachi.

I found this What McCain Didn't Do At the Debate: Force a Sarah Palin Moment
and felt better after reading the comments.

Yes, I am worried about closet and openly discriminative white vote that would rather vote for the devil than Barack Obama. The other day I read some comment on Youtube saying she wasn't racist, but she would never vote for Obama and to prove it she named three black people she would vote for. I only remember two names: Bill Cosby and Al Sharpton. Seriously, Barack is by far more qualified than these two. Just because a white person says that they aren't a racist is no measurement.

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A recap of John McCain's debate performance
Uploaded by HuffPolitics

McCain and Team Have Many Ties to Gambling Industry

From the TPM Cafe:

• McPain Is Ailin'
  by articleman
• Senator Obama, Please Do Not Stop Being "Nice"
  by Bruce Cameron
• My 8 Year Old Son's Debate Analysis
  by John Nail
• U.S. Army To Be Deployed For Domestic Duty
  by hrebendorf
• Low Ranking Monkey!
  by destor23
• My Overall Impression On How The Debate Went.
  by liam
• Why Obama Won the Debate: It's Not About Style Points
  by jcd
• The Game Changer: "Spending Freeze"
  by Subliminability
• WHAT SEN. McCAIN DOESN'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND
  by Deanie Mills
• Foreign policy and eye contact
  by dharmabum

• Palin the Post Turtle is a must read!!
  by db66
• McCain and the competence gap
  by hobobituary

Plain talk

Senator McCain speaks to us about what we should fear and shows us how to put-down others such as Senator Obama in his own actions. From the way he runs his campaign we see his governing style will be from impulsiveness and has no real vision to move us in incremental ways to a better future.

Senator Obama speaks to us of how it can be better within our own country and how to maintain a level-headedness about huge problems. And Senator Obama illustrates how to maintain rare decency in the world of politics while letting us see his thoughtful way of governing
by the way he runs his campaign.

I see a mantra from some im-posters around the blogs, which is that Barack Obama is an empty suit who is a lot of hot air. I disagree. We know an empty suit. He has been President for the last 8 years. It will be a mistake to put McCain into that same suit.

Just some straight talk

18 in 08? WE NEED YOU TO VOTE. I LIKE BARACK. WHO DO YOU LIKE?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rs9sinZJ_4&watch_response
The Show Must Go On
Bush Don’t Take the USA into War with Iran.
Bush took us and Iraqis into war with Iraq and that was a colossal mistake and continues as an on-going disaster.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY2BviiUDsw
Senator Barack Obama makes his opening statements to the the audience at the NAACP Democratic Candidate Forum in Detroit, MI
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyHJZxNm-Cg
Barack Obama on Iran
Barack Obama says that George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear from the American people: "You don't have our support, and you don't have our authorization for another war" in Iran.

I plan to vote for Barack Obama for President. I look at the Republican Presidential candidates and I am worried. It is a puzzle to me that most of the Republican candidates think they have the ability to lead the Divided States of America. Mike Huckabee is likable but his specific stands don’t fit my values. Is this the best the Repbulicans can come up with for Presidential candidates?

Barack Obama’s website:
http://www.barackobama.com/index.php
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5V6W_xPc4o
Bush
This is edited but it still makes a statement about our President

The whole world has had to endure his blundering. I hope this time we end up with a mind that isn’t hibernating the whole time he or she is President. I hope this time we get better than we deserve. It is so painful to have a President with poor judgment and who lies.

I sincerely hope the youngest people who can vote this time will take the time and effort to exercise their democratic right and vote and vote smart. We need a thinking person as a President. Not just someone who wears a suit well.

Please, vote. And vote smart. Don’t leave it up only to those who voted in the last two presidential elections. We all have a stake in what the next President’s legacy will be. The legacy of Bush is sad, dismal and a President who does not respect democracy or our Constitution. He is not a person of substance. We need someone willing to lead with sights on building a stronger American through something more than military means.

18 IN ‘08
http://votesmart.org/blog/

Vote in 2008
http://www.18in08.com/

Blog at 18 in ‘08
http://im18in08.blogspot.com/

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/

PRESIDENT PINOCCHIO JUST PLAYING WITH US

PRESIDENT BUSH IS A LIE WAITING FOR THE TRUTH TO SET HIM FREE.
WE ARE ENABLERS BY ALLOWING HIM TO LEAD US INTO THE DEPTHS OF HIS INCOMPETENCY. WHERE ARE THE CLEAR-MINDED THINKERS AND BOLD PEOPLE WHO CAN SAY OUT LOUD WHAT MUST BE SAID?

President Bush is like a sick playwright and he uses the world as his stage. We are his characters in his world-wide play. I am tired of being taken for stupid.

“I want to tell you this about the decision, about my decision about troop levels. Those decisions will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground, not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media."
George W Bush

"Everything you said about Iraq yesterday, and everything you will say, is a deception, for the purpose of this one cynical, unacceptable, brutal goal: perpetuating this war indefinitely."
Keith Olbermann, September 4, 2007

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20593445/
“Bush just playing us with 'troop withdrawal - Revelation contradicts every other rationale offered in the last 500 days"
Keith Olbermann On President Bush’s Trip to Iraq and His REAL Reasons for Continuing His War in Iraq
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A portion from Keith Olbermann’s September 4th "Special Comment":

And as if those polls were not so overwhelming, and not so clearly reflective of the nation's agony and the nation's insistence.

But this president has ceased to listen. This president has decided that night is day, and death is life, and enraging the world against us is safety. And this laziest of presidents, actually interrupted his precious time off to fly to Iraq to play at a photo opportunity with soldiers, some of whom will on his orders be killed before the year maybe the month is out.

Just over 500 days remain in this presidency. Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield in these last 500 days.

Consider the singular fraudulence of this president's trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of the Petraeus Report in these last 500 days.

Consider how this president has torn away at the fabric of this nation in a manner of which terrorists can only dream in these last 500 days.

And consider again how this president has spoken to that biographer: that he is “playing for October-November." The goal in Iraq is “to get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence." Consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered in these last 500 days.

In the context of all that now, consider these next 500 days.

Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end. Even if it means your resignation. Even if it means your impeachment. Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term. Even if it means a Democratic Congress and those true patriots among the Republicans standing up and denying you another penny for Iraq, other than for the safety and the safe conduct home of our troops.

This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country in the next 500 days.

Not while you are playing....

“I'm playing for October-November," Mr. Bush said to Draper. That, evidently, is the time during which, he thinks he can sell us the real plan, which is “to get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence."

Comfortable, that is, with saying about Iraq, again quoting the President, “stay... longer."

This is worth hearing the whole justified rant from Keith which comes at the end of the link address above.

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DARFUR
George Bush said Genocide Would
NOT HAPPEN ON HIS WATCH
BUT IT HAS AND IT IS

http://www.ushmm.org/googleearth/projects/darfur/

Bring the Olympic Dream to Darfur

www.dreamfordarfur.org

www.savedarfur.org

www.standnow.org

Thanks!

IF SATAN WAS REPUBLICAN, HE'D BE BACKED TO THE HILT BY SOME

I was raised to be a diehard conservative, Republican and fundamentalist type of Christian. I am none of those things. I am still stunned when I witness one of these descriptive characters on television. And I not only am thoroughly puzzled by what to me is a lack of critical thinking and reasonable weighing of truth on their part, but it comes with a physical reaction to their noticeably pigheaded view of truth. Sure, I feel my perception of the truth is the real truth, but I can make room for an opposing view if it is not presented in a demeaning and demoralizing manner. *Enter Melanie Morgan for the first time on my radar - on Chris Matthews’ Hardball tonight.

So off I went online to find out about her background. And I came up with the following from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/10/22/48hours/main67667.shtml

(CBS) Despite all the problems gambling was causing her, Melanie Morgan refused to quit.

Finally, her husband got fed up and left her; he threatened to take their baby, CJ, away from her forever.

Morgan decided to get help. "I knew I was so far out of control that I had to do something."

She made an appointment with a therapist, who told her that she needed immediate help.

…...As she waited, Morgan realized that if she stayed on this path, she would probably end up killing herself. (Problem gamblers have a higher rate of suicide than drug addicts or alcoholics.)

She fled the bank and went to the hospital. There she met Dr. Robert Hunter, a clinical psychologist who runs one of the country's best known rehab centers for compulsive gamblers.

Morgan clearly had a problem, Hunter says. She was a classic "action gambler." She craved excitement, action, noise and liked being the center of attention…

Okay, this little bit made sense and shed light on her treatment of another woman, who although she disagreed with Morgan, she was classy and never stooped to Morgan’s level of total lack of civility. She proved that she “craved excitement, action, noise and liked being the center of attention”. She perhaps just replaced her gambling actions’ fixes with this crap behavior that I saw her shoot like a weapon toward another woman. This wasn’t “hardball” it was that cheap wrestling type theatre you see on TV, but just throw in some verbal mud-slinging.

So this is the type of human being that George W Bush and The Dick Cheney have speaking up for them. That speaks volumes. Just what I wouldn’t want sticking up for me. Maybe, Melanie Morgan could get the Press Secretary job after Tony Snow leaves the job before the jig is up.

Another one is Tucker Carlson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE

If Satan was a Republican, I feel these types would defend him to the hilt. Truth doesn’t have a thing to do with their position. Staking out their territory appears to be the goal. It's a position that needs nothing more than having strong feelings for the position. Reasonableness takes a back seat to shooting off their mouths. Civil exchanges are foreign to them. Insulting is in the bag of their behavioral weaponry. Considering that someone who doesn’t think like they do might have a point or have a right to being treated with respect is out of range for them.

Bush makes no sense to me. But some stand by him no matter what he does, says or lies about. The things that bothered them about President Clinton were things like oral stimulation of the penis and his affairs with women other than his wife. Clinton betrayed his wife. Bush has betrayed the country. But that’s just my opinion.

How many movies will be done on this administration? Here are some title ideas …
The Bush Push to the White House
The Body Politic - The Karl Rove Story (authored by somebody other than The Rover himself)
The Dick
The Alberto Flamingo Dance
The Bush Press Secretaries Took IT Standing Up
Oh Laura, Poor Laura
Barney, Laura and George Live in Mexico Now
You Break It You Own IT - Colin Powell's Got a Line
Harriet Miers Lame Story
How to Succeed For Business and Fail as Leader of the Free World
All Of George's Nominees
Katrina and George
Why Pull Out When We Can Just Languish
Oh, Condoleezza, Puhleeza

When I hear people talk about the lack of qualifications or experience of any of the Democratic Presidential candidates, I think of GW Bush. This man in a suit has proved again and again "The Peter Principle". Again, just my opinion. And said with all due respect to him.

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If you want to see Melanie Morgan in action, here it is thanks to POLExpediters.

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You Can Make A Difference

The Difference That We Need to End and Prevent GENOCIDE

www.savedarfur.org

www.dreamfordarfur.org

Call President Bush

202-456-111

Call US Senators and Representatives

1-800-GENOCIDE

>:>:>:>:>:>:>:>:>:>:

FORGET GOD BLESS AMERICA…GOD BLESS THE HUMAN RACE AND THE UNIVERSE

What good is humanity if we don’t practice it?

I think of things that others don’t seem to be interested in. I get that feeling, anyway. Like what’s really important in life? What will matter to me in the end? Why do we claim peace is so important and yet we really don’t act like it is. I mean we have a War College where I live. Our national defense is all about the military and killing “over there” so we don’t have it going on here, the Bush administration claims. ...Which bothers me because it presumes that the people “over there” are less important than we are. When I was in college, until President Richard Nixon took it away, I had a loan for College called a National Defense Student Loan. That to me would be real defense – educating our young adults. Real defense would be having a national health care program for all citizens. Real defense would be a strong country which embraced our humanity by supporting the arts with a national budget to do so. Real defense would be actually caring about the babies born in this country. Real defense would be having a national foster care program that had a sufficient budget to do right by our children that had the audacity to be born into a family-less existence. …National foster care, so that the birth parents couldn’t avoid a state’s mandate by moving across the line.

The Things We Can Measure in Life
I had the thought that I wanted to say that the important things in life are the things that we do the least with and about. That the things that we measure in life versus those things that we can’t or don’t measure have an important difference that cries out metaphorically for our scrutiny. Then I went on basically about War versus Peace. War is where we put our money, lives and resourcefulness and working toward Peace gets barely a footnote of attention. The thing is we can measure how many bodies are dead, but we can’t measure how many hearts and human spirits have been lifted in a day. We can “measure” who is better at tennis, football, boxing, any sport. We can count money, so we know who is rich and who is poor. We can measure bigger and taller as if that makes something better merely by size. We can measure or judge who is pretty. We measure beauty by youthful looks. We can measure how much someone weighs. We measure success by the car that someone drives or the things they buy. We can measure the size of a penis. We can measure how many days we have lived. But in the end, what we can’t count or measure are the things of real human importance. Peace of mind, empathy, kind words, thoughts worthy of our goodness, how we made someone feel, joy, effort to mend a broken spirit, resilience when life has been desolate such as during genocide, how to convince a nation to be honest with its own mistakes and faults. We can’t measure the degree of how racist someone is.

Truth. Justice. Freedom. How much injustice does it take to rob someone of their sense of living in a just situation? How much truth does it take to diffuse lies that have been dished out during someone’s whole life? How many freedoms can be taken away before freedom itself is compromised so much that it can be said that freedom is an illusion or nonexistent? How much joy do you need? How much pain can someone take before he or she breaks? Can you measure these things? I don’t believe you can. And yet to me they are the things worth my time, attention and effort to address in life. Nothing that I can count or measure will comfort me if I should linger waiting for death to suck the breath from my mortal body. But these things can.

How Many Genocides Does It Take
It just seems to me that we have messed up this whole thing called life.

How many genocides does it take to get it right…To be willing to spend the political will to end genocide?

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http://youtube.com/watch?v=HJDWAMmT8wk&feature=PlayList&p=6F988D8CECBF2843&index=0

Protect Against Genocide by Aegis Trust
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Does one racist remark make you a racist? How many sharp, deliberately hurtful words does it take from a mother or father, how much narcissistic behavior will a mother or father act out to her or his children before it occurs to her or him that maybe she or he has the problem that she or he is reassigning to her or his children’s responsibility? (Okay, sorry for all the she/he inclusions.) How many killings and maimed bodies does it take before the war is deemed over? How many wars can we count? How many wars have brought a period of long, enduring peace or freedom?

We can count our money, our debt. We can count our weapons of war. We can count the burials. We could count the mentally ill soldiers that come back from wars if we wanted to. We can count our children. But can we count or measure our happiness? Can we count the cost of war in regards to the deaths of hopes, dreams and possibilities? The price of peace is not war. The price of peace is obviously harder than going to war. It’s easy to go to war. It’s not so easy to go to peace.

I’m happy. I’ve never known happiness, contentment, excitement or understanding of my family with my eyes and heart so free to see as I am at the present time in my life. Yes, I’m thoroughly disappointed in some things. I am disappointed that my mother has chosen to live her life in a pretend and phony way. I am disappointed that my family is broken and there is little reason to think that it will change. But I am comfortable with my acceptance of the way it is. I know who I am and I really like who I am. I am blessed with the passions that I have been given. I love life in a vibrant way while being creative and excited with my activities. I can’t change my mother. I can’t make others be happy.

I am personally happy and at the same time I am thoroughly upset with my country…President Bush and his unwillingness to see truth even when it is directly facing him. I am thoroughly disappointed with a country that is divided on what is truly important and what we have in common with not only one another, but the rest of the planet’s people. I don’t like the phrase “God Bless America” because I think that is too small of an idea. I prefer God Bless the Human Race. God Bless All Things. Who are we that we go around only asking God to Bless US? Pretty self-important and in denial over that fact that we aren’t “all that”. It bothers me that “We the People” have given over our responsibilities as keepers of our constitutional rights to unbalanced and heartless elected politicians and to the paid lobbyists who operate in Washington, D.C. without the bright light of the press breathing down their necks. Apathy bothers me. But, I can do what I can do. And I do.

The following song’s lyrics came to mind as I was writing:

Rolling Home

Lyrics by Eric Andersen

Truth, with all it’s far out schemes,

Lets time decide what it should mean;

It’s not the time but just the dreams that die.

And sometimes when the room is still,

Time with so much truth to kill,

Leaves you by the window sill so tied

Without a wing, to take you high,

Without a clue to tell you why.

Now, I just want to keep my name, not bother anybody’s game

Without ideas of gold or fame or insane heights.

I don’t want a lot of money, I don’t want a playboy bunny,

Just a love to call me honey late at night,

In my arms, by my side, in my arms late at night.

Well, I see the ones who crawl like moles

Who for a front would trade their souls,

A broken mirror’s the only hole for them;

And for you who’d exchange yourselves,

Just to be somebody else,

Pretending things you never felt or meant;

Hey, you don’t live what you defend,

You can’t give so you just bend.

Now if you care what people think,

Like they supplied some missing link;

They’ll just stand back and watch you sink so slow.

They’ll never help you to decide,

They’ll only take you for a ride,

After which they’ll try and hide the fact that they don’t know

What you should do, where you should go,

There’s nothing big I want to prove,

No mountains that I need to move,

Or even claim what’s right or true for you.

My sights, my songs are slightly charred,

You might think they miss their mark,

But things are only what they are and nothing new

But for me, I think they’ll do,

Well, I can see a king and queen, a beggar falling at my feet;

They all must see the same sad dreams at night;

Futility and senseless war, pit the rich against the poor,

While cause is buried long before the fight

For what was wrong, for what was right,

It’s just the strong, who ever says what’s right.

Chorus:

But I don’t know, I ain’t been told,

Ev’rybody wants a hand to hold.

They’re so afraid of being old,

So scared of dying, so unknown

And so alone, rollin’ home.

The Great Mandala

Sung by Peter Yarrow and Richie Havens

Thanks to prisha91755

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vj1YxTl1e2I

We say we want peace. We have never really given peace a chance. Peace surely requires and deserves more complex work than war. And we can’t really believe that it’s peace that war renders. Peace is harder than war. And it requires more ability and will than our so-called free nations have illustrated during the race to be human. We get what we work on. I’ll be bold and say that we work at war much harder than we work toward a peaceful planet.

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Truth is truth and it never dies.

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DARFUR, SUDAN

IF OUR LEADERS WON'T LEAD

ON THE ULTIMATE RIGHT TO LIVING A LIFE

THEN It is Our Torch to Carry

STOPPING GENOCIDE IS A RESPONSITILITY FOR ALL OF US

The President's Comment Phone Line is open Monday through Friday
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
202 - 456 - 1111

email: president@whitehouse.gov

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Call your US Senators & Representatives at

1 - 800 - GENOCIDE

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Genocide flourishes when there is no accountability.

WE CAN’T SAY THAT WE CARE ABOUT JUSTICE

WHEN WE DO NOTHING TO STOP THE INJUSTICE

We each have a voice.

We each have a presence.

We have been called to be human

 in the most basic way

 on this subject.  

 Where there is a will - there is always a way.  

And where there is no will - there is no way. 

Let us not be silent.

Silence is necessary for genocide to go on.  

Our collective silence is a weapon used by the genocidaires.  

Silence kills.  

And we are responsible for our personal silence.

If Peace never begins, Genocide will never end.

Where does Peace begin?

One World.

One humanity.

One Human Race.

One.

BE INSPIRED

• http://www.savedarfur.org

Join a Darfur Event.

Events will be starting on August 8, 2007,

which can be found at the SaveDarfur or Dream for Darfur Website

• www.dreamfordarfur.org
• www.sudandivestment.org/
  • http://www.genocideintervention.net/
  • http://www.standnow.org/

• http://www.ajws.org/
• www.aiusa.org

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21+ MILLION HUMANS LIVING AS REFUGEES AND WHO CARES

WHAT MOVES US? AND WHY?

The news that gets reported on my local and national news televised shows leaves me with no desire to get my news from them.

Go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/ and get a different sort of world wide coverage than we get in the USA overall. This website covers, in depth, the world.

Get Sudan news here:
http://sudan.net/

Personally I feel that television journalism quality in the USA has sunk so low that it is not worth my time. Is it that we USA citizens don't want to know about what is going on around the planet or that our news media has been feeding us "news candy" for so long that we don't recognize the state of media news coverage?

Yesterday, was Refugee Day. And it made me think that millions of people don't have a bathroom to use, running water, electricity - all the things that we take for granted. Many fear for their lives every minute of every 24 hour day. Children who are abducted to be soldiers and forced to do things that we refuse to think about for more than a fleeting moment.

A refugee is a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country..."

The 1951 Convention relating to
the Status of Refugees

"The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees." http://www.unhcr.org/basics.html

Video from a Refugee Camp with David Rubenstein (Past Executive Director of the Save Darfur Coalition) and actress Mia Farrow. They traveled to Darfuri refugee camps in Chad to document first hand testimonials from the victims of the ongoing genocide in Darfur:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=A_jjTJ19WgE

This is our world. And it is not right that we don't speak up and act when we have so many blessings. The things that consume our time, thoughts and money are what speak to what is important to us. If we don't even want to know what is happening in the real world, then the problem is not only the victims but our individual and governments' moral compasses have been lost.

"Today, there are more than 33 million people in need of international protection and assistance. Roughly 12 million are refugees and more than 21 million are internally displaced people (meaning they have been forced from their homes by violence or disaster but have not crossed an international border). People displaced inside their countries face the same hardships as refugees, without the same protection under international law." http://www.arcrelief.org

I was raised to be a Christian. I was taught: On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, "Come, enter the Kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me." Then Jesus will turn to those on His left hand and say, "Depart from me because I was hungry and you did not feed me, I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink, I was sick and you did not visit me." These will ask Him, "When did we see You hungry, or thirsty or sick and did not come to Your help?" And Jesus will answer them, "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of these least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!"

What I see is "I've got mine". And that seems to be the end of the philosophy. Whether you claim to be Christian, a believer in some other God-based faith or what I consider myself to be today, a humanist, who believes that we are all sisters and brothers who should look out for one another with empathy and compassion - this world is suffering from the "I've got mine" attitude and blaming the ills of the world on the "evil-doers" is lame at best.

What's in it for you is that you aren't free until every one is free. So, those who die with the most possessions or in the so-called "richest" country in the world have no more guarantee to happiness in her or his heart than one living under a tree or piece of card board in a refugee camp.

I am happy not because someone else must receive less than their due to pave the way for my happiness. But I am happy because I am living my life in the light of truth and integrity. What makes no sense to me is that we claim to be free when in deed we are not.

Words are not enough. I am sick of George Bush getting away with his dishonorable conduct. I am sick of speaking out about the Darfur genocide and the whole world just lets it go by without even a genuine effort to stop it. Who are we, if not hypocrites? Hypocrites: a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc. that he or she does not actually possess, especially whose actions belie stated beliefs. That's what my dictionary says a hypocrite is. To me it defines President Bush.

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May 29, 2007 Lobbying U.S. RI Senator Whitehouse
regarding Darfur genocide

Left to right: Bill York, Frankie DaPonte,Samantha Brilhante, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, me, Sandra Hammel,"Instead of Mourning a Genocide - Stop One", Jackie Cano, Michael Murphy, Juliana Beltran, Patrick Schmitt,Frank T. Caprio, RI General Treasurer, not pictured, Xay Khamsyvoravong, RI Treasurer’s Deputy Chief of Staff, not pictured

On May 29, 2007, I arranged to meet with United States Rhode Island Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse in their Rhode Island offices to lobby them about Darfur. I invited other constituents to go with me. This was the third time that I had lobbied Senator Reed. Senator Whitehouse is in his first 6 year term as Senator. The need for the China Resolution was spelled out to Senator Reed in our lobby meeting. When I called Senator Reed's contact person for Darfur to follow up on our requests of action last week, she admitted to knowing absolutely nothing about there being a China Resolution. So I repeated my request, giving her the number of the Resolution. She said she would look into China Resolution and she didn't think there would be any problem getting Senator Reed to sign on. This proves it is not enough to speak to the Senator and trust him to do what is right. Furthermore, Senator Reed even told us that he thought he might already be a co-sponsor of the resolution. No, this was not so. We are the "Checks and Balance" on our elected politicians.

May 29, 2007 Lobbying U.S. RI Senator Reed regarding Darfur genocide

Left to right: Xay Khamsyvoravong, Deputy Chief of Staff of RI Treasurer, Patrick Schmitt, Senator Jack Reed, me, Sandra Hammel, Frank T. Caprio, RI General Treasurer, Jennifer Ross

We took five requests of action to the senators and the slowness of this kind of response to people who are living on the ground without any thing but their spirits to keep them going day into night is NOT GOOD Enough.

Here are the five requests that we Rhode Island constituents asks of our United States Senators when lobbying about Darfur:

1 Senate Bill 831 Divestment Authorization Act

Move it by working with northeastern Senators

Member of the Sudan Democratic Caucus?

(Note: H R 180 sponsored by Lee & Frank in Financial Service committee)

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2 Appropriations

a. Administration’s budgeted amount for AU and UN Hybrid Peacekeepers: insufficient

b. Asking for additional $186 Million above President Bush’s requested amount

c. Ask him to move it out of committee with the $186 Million amount

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3 China Resolution Senate Resolution 203

a. Tell him we want him to be a co-sponsor on the Senate Resolution 203

(House of Rep has a sister H Res 423)

1. 70% of Sudan Oil exported to China

2. China provides arms to Sudan

3. China is protector at UN for Sudan, President Omar al-Bashir

(4. Note: China untypically assigned a Darfur Special Envoy)

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4 Oversight of Administration’s efforts to address crisis in Darfur: To ensure that Darfur is being correctly prioritized within U.S. foreign policy and to ensure that no opportunities for peace are missed for lack of resources. This oversight can come in the form Dear Colleague sign-on letters, congressional delegation trips to Darfur and Chad, as well as private conversations with Administration officials. Oversight is also critical to guarantee that any sanctions which may be enacted as part of a package of “Plan B” measures are fully implemented. Special effort to ensure that all areas of the Administration are pulling their weight to make the sanctions effective is needed. Please exercise oversight responsibilities to make sure that the U.S. government is doing all it should be to end the genocide in Darfur.

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5 We ask the Senator to write an Op-Ed piece regarding S. 831, as well as the importance of the China Resolution, S. Res. 203 to end the four year + genocide in Darfur, Sudan in the Providence Journal with Senator Whitehouse.

INSTANT KARMA CD The Campaign To Save Darfur:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XGbP23uHYE8

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There are paid lobbyists in Washington, D.C. who are not paid to look out for us the citizens, but for their businesses’ bottom line, money. “We the People” must wake up from a sleep and become a part of our government or we have no right to complain that our government is not listening to us. “We the People” does not mean elected politicians and paid-by-corporations-lobbyists – it means “We the People”. That is you and me.

This is a mock cover.

It is shocking what has been happening in the name of the citizens of the United States of America these last several years. I believe if you think President George Bush and his hand-picked administration have been serving this country well – you just haven’t been paying attention. I know some think I am absolutely wrong.

This is not a mock cover. It is/was for real.

But the rest of the world have no USA blinders on. These blinders are an anomaly known to US Americans only.

Find your USA senator and become part of the solution to our poor governing:

http://www.senate.gov/

http://www.house.gov/

President George Bush

president@whitehouse.gov

202-456-1111

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20500, USA

..........................................................

The Honorable Ban ki-Moon

Secretary-General United Nations

Room 3800

New York, NY 10017 USA

Website: www.un.org

..........................................................

Refugee help:
http://www.arcrelief.org
http://www.theirc.org/

Darfur Genocide activists websites:
www.savedarfur.org
www.genocideintervention.net
www.sudandivestment.com

A fact:

Did you know that the United States citizens who live in the nations capital, Washington, D.C. do not have any voting representative in the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives? Isn't that taxation without representation? I think so.