|
Sept 13 commentary "For links to the
articles I read on the air, guest websites, archived shows, my
commentaries, a listener's discussion forum, and the text of
Mark Stanneart’s latest commentary, visit:
www.rabblerousing.org."
First item: well, last sun, nev city had a constitution day
parade. Sounds pretty innocuous doesn’t it? Well, nothing is
simple in nirvana silly. The announced theme was "freedom
of speech" but at least two of the announcers don’t seem
to really believe in practicing freedom of speech, or perhaps
the concept is simply too difficult for them to grasp. . So this
item is dedicated to local deciders paul matson and greg cook,
who, like dr science, seemingly know more than we do about
freedom of speech. Here is part of the letter written by one of
the group whose brief statement was censored by matson.
"After the fact bob asked the announcers why they
refused to read our whole statement and the answer from
Greg Cook was, "We do what we do."
(i.e. apparently meaning, we are the deciders and we decide
who has freedom of speech and who doesn't in OUR
parade.) by the way, Who's parade is
it? Is the parade event the property of the
Chamber of Commerce or someone else? Does it belong to
somebody who gets to arbitrarily decide who gets to have
their simple little statement read, and who doesn't? if
so, What is their criteria? Does the
statement have to be pleasing to the majority political
party in power?
The thick and palpable irony of this episode
is that the theme of today's Constitution
Day Parade was ....
"Freedom of Speech." Yes, I'm
NOT KIDDING. Can it be any more ironic than that?
And not only that, but our group is called Americans for
Constitutional Integrity with a mission of upholding the
Constitution, particularly the part written in it about holding
public servants accountable. It can't get much more
thematic than that. In case you missed the inflammatory
words the announcer felt he had to censor here it is:
Full (uncensored) Parade Statement: Americans For
Constitutional Integrity, dedicated to protecting the
Constitution of the US, activating the impeachment process
defined in the Constitution, and impeaching President George
Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney for high crimes against
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. To his credit, The
president of the Nevada City Constitution Day Parade Commission,
Dennis Cassella, issued a public apology the very next day which
was pub in the gv union the following day. But, the cow was out
of the barn. You cant undo what has been done, and nev city
looks very much like a town that cant walk its talk. We have a
parade honoring freedom of speech, just don’t expect us to
practice freedom of speech. By the way, the announcer who
decided to censor the statement is a recently defeated member of
the nev city governing body. Of all people, he should know the
difference between a private citizen expressing his opinions or
in this case censoring the opinions of others, and a public
servant carrying out a job. In future, If you are chosen to be
the announcer at a parade on the public streets, please just do
your job. Announce the damn parade.
Next item: Insurance Industry Funds Majority of
Opposition Campaign
The California Nurses Association has reported that 59
percent of the money being used to run the campaign opposing
Proposition 89 comes directly from the state’s powerful
insurance lobby.
The insurance lobby has been a major player in Sacramento,
funding many legislators in key committees and the governor.
When Governor Schwarzenegger in oct of last year vetoed an
insurance reform bill that would have saved taxpayers $225
million a year, the American Insurance Association donated
$105,000 to Schwarzenegger’s campaign. This is just one
of many examples of the close ties between powerful special
interests and lawmakers. Check out this
release from Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights on
recent votes and contributions to Schwarzenegger.
Next item: progress comes slowly on our planet of the insane.
In this, the information age, its getting more difficult for
rouge govts to keep their dirty secrets from becoming public. A
high official in the Israeli military has publically admitted
that the Israelis used internationally banned phosporus bombs,
and an astounding number of cluster bombs in their recent
invasion of lebanon. All Phosporus bombs are banned by
international laws, and cluster bombs are banned in civilian
areas. The days when the Israelis rightfully claimed the moral
high ground are long gone. And then we have bbc announcing that
britians highest judicial official has come out publically
condemning the entire American attempt to circumvent fair
judicial practices at guantanamo bay cuba. So, bottom line:
nothing has changed. But the bad guys are at least being
publically outed as being bad guys. It aint a solution, but It’s
a start.
Next item: nev co board of sups has voted to invite diebold
corp to influence our elections. The bottom line rational is
that the fed hava act mandates it. It doesn’t. it does mandate
making voting accessible to the handicapped. But there are other
ways to guarantee the handicapped the right to vote. That is a
smoke screen issue. A ploy to force fraudulent voting machines
manufactured by the plutocracy upon the general public, thereby
having the potential to corrupt the voting process. My question
is a simple one. What if the nev co board of sups had the huevos
to tell the feds, excuse us, but we don’t trust diebold or
their machines. They have an absolutely lousy track record.
Until you force them to provide paper receipts from their
machines, exactly as they do in the atm machines they also make,
we will not comply with your hava act. Until you force the
machine makers to make their software programs available to
public scrutiny, exactly as in Australia, Venezuela, and other
sensible countries, we cannot comply with your hava act. The
sanctity of our elections trumps your hava act. What would the
feds do? what could they do? cancel our elections? Send in the
army to force installation of electronic voting and counting
machines? What could they actually do? wouldn’t it make an
interesting court case? too bad the sups hid behind the excuse
that the decision was essentially out of their hands. The 10th
amendment of the bill of rights has something to say about the
limits of the power of the federal govt. I wonder if any elected
officials will ever take the power that is theirs? It wont
happen here, but maybe somewhere in our nation, some locally
elected officials will truly represent their constituents, and
stand up to the feds on this issue. Course its not really that
important. Its only the foundation of our system. The solution
is so simple it’s a no brainer. Paper ballots, and hand
counting. It would delay results of elections by a few days,
maybe even a week. Oh my goodness, we couldn’t have that now
could we? We demand instant results, even if they are
fraudulent. But by waiting, we would have fair, honest and
undisputed elections. Obviously, the people in power fear that.
So instead they give us instant elections results that just
happen to be rife with fraud. And the sheeple line up for the
slaughter.
For anyone who believes that the introduction of diebold
electronic voting machines into nev co is of no concern, you
might want to reflect upon the following facts:
*80% of all votes in America are counted by only two
companies: Diebold and ES&S.
*The vice-president of Diebold and the president of
ES&S are brothers.
* ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the
U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
- In the last election 30% of all U.S. votes were carried
out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no
paper trail. This means there was no possibility of a
recount. None.
- There is no federal agency with regulatory authority
or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
- Let me repeat that one: There is no
federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the
U.S. voting machine industry.
* Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper
trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify
that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was
legitimately put in by voters.
*Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and
ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can
generate a paper trail.
*Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as
consultants and developers to help write the central
compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30
states.
* Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of
Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even
though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the
first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold
and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning
software now used in most of the United States.
*. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of
planting back doors in his software and using a
"high degree of sophistication" to evade detection
over a period of 2 years.
trail.
- All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors
detected and reported in Florida went in favor of
Bush or Republican candidates.
Next item: The following is a statement from the committee to
elect debra bowen calif sec of state: Last week, Zogby
International released the results of a recent poll of
Americans' attitudes about election transparency and
security. The findings clearly speak for themselves. 92%
of those surveyed agreed that citizens "have the right to
view and obtain information about how election officials count
votes." What's more, 80% of respondents believe that
it is unacceptable for votes to be counted using secret,
proprietary software from electronic voting machine
vendors. Clearly, Americans know what we want from our elections
system. We want transparency, security, and
fairness. In short, we want to know that our votes are
being counted – and counted accurately. That's the kind of
elections system Debra Bowen will deliver as California's next
Secretary of State. Unfortunately, your current Schwarzenegger-appointed
Secretary of State, Bruce McPherson, has rubber-stamped
electronic voting machines that have failed security tests and
proven to be unreliable time and time again. In the
upcoming nov election you might want to consider this info when
voting. And most important, to those of you who still think
voting is not important. In my opinion, it still is important,
but if you don’t vote, and vote intelligently, it soon will
not be important, for you will have totally lost control over
those who govern you. Please consider Registering to vote, and
then voting. In nev co you can make a statement by insisting on
your right to ignore the diebold machines and voting on a paper
ballot. The time may soon come when you will no longer have that
right. Wake up, before its too late.
Next item: sent in by a listener: Think about this: If you
consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the
Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a
total of 2,112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per
100,000 soldiers. The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is
80.6 per 100,000 for the same period. That means that you are
about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capitol
which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation,
than you are in Iraq. The conclusion is inescapable. The U.S.
should pull out of Washington DC.
This item is out of the sf chronicle sports section, from a
column called the betting fool: his question of the week was:
are adults ruining kids sports. Here is my favorite reply: My
dad used to be a volunteer umpire at my kids-league baseball
games. One game, the adults were particularly obnoxious and
getting on us for everything. In the middle of an early inning,
my dad stood up, took off his mask and turned to face the crowd.
"These kids are here to have fun and play a game," he
intoned loudly. "If you do not shut up and let them enjoy
it, I will clear the stands and finish the game without
you." One dad yelled "You can't do that." My dad
said "Try me." The stands got very quiet for an inning
or two, and then the positive comments started. The word got
out, and every game he umpired after that was a positive
experience. It was wonderful and something I remember vividly
after almost 50 years.
|
