Vote fraud, fascism, is anyone out there???

Got this in the mail today. Stunning:



Got this in the mail today. Heartbreaking:

I used to give thought to what historical time and place I would like to have lived in. Europe in the 1930s was usually my first choice. As the war clouds darkened, I'd be surrounded by intrigue, spies omnipresent, matters of life and death pressing down, the opportunity to be courageous and principled. I pictured myself helping desperate people escape to America. It was real Hollywood stuff; think "Casablanca". And when the Spanish Republic fell to Franco and his fascist forces, aided by the German and Italian fascists (while the United States and Britain stood aside, when not actually aiding the fascists), everything in my imaginary scenario would have heightened -- the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Then the Nazis marched into Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland ... one could have devoted one's life to working against all this, trying to hold back the fascist tide; what could be more thrilling, more noble?

Miracle of miracles, miracle of time machines, I'm actually living in this imagined period, watching as the Bush fascists march into Afghanistan, bombing it into a "failed state"; then Iraq: death, destruction, and utterly ruined lives for 24 million human beings; threatening more of the same endless night of hell for the people of Iran; overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti; bombing helpless refugees in Somalia; relentless attempts to destabilize and punish Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Gaza, and other non-believers in the empire's god-given mission. Sadly, my most common reaction to this real-life scenario, daily in fact, is less heroic and more feeling scared or depressed; not for myself personally but for our one and only world. The news every day, which I consume in large portions, slashes away at my joie de vivre; it's not just the horror stories of American military power run amok abroad and the injustices of the ever-expanding police state at home, but all the lies and stupidity which drive me up the wall. I'm constantly changing stations, turning the TV or radio off, turning the newspaper page, to escape the words of the King of Lies and the King of Stupidity -- those two twisted creatures who happen to occupy the same humanoid body -- and a hundred minions.

Nonetheless, I must tell you, comrades, that at the same time, our contemporary period also brings out in me a measure of what I imagined for my 1930s life. Our present world is in just as great peril, even more so when one considers the impending environmental catastrophe (which the King of Capitalism refuses to confront lest it harm the profits of those who lavish him with royal bribes). The Bush fascist tide must be stopped.

(Read the rest at The Anti-Empire Report.)

Along with an illegal war against people who have never attacked us, plans for a second war against people who have ALSO never attacked us, the tasering of a kid who asked too long a question and the accidental(??) death of a woman handcuffed after losing it at the airport - what kind of a people are we becoming??

And now we're outsourcing our security, in a most corrupt fashion:

When we evaluate the facts, the use of private military contractors appears to have harmed, rather than helped, the counterinsurgency efforts of the U.S. mission in Iraq, going against our best doctrine and undermining critical efforts of our troops. Even worse, the government can no longer carry out one of its most basic core missions: to fight and win the nation's wars. Instead, the massive outsourcing of military operations has created a dependency on private firms like Blackwater that has given rise to dangerous vulnerabilities.

On Tuesday, among those testifying on Capitol Hill will be Erik Prince, the chairman and owner of Blackwater, as well as a series of State Department officials who were supposed to have overseen the firm's activities. We can expect that Prince will wrap himself in the flag, discussing all the vital missions that Blackwater conducts in Iraq, while downplaying the recent killings. State Department officials are likely to say that they had no other option but to use the firm, given their lack of Diplomatic Security forces -- conveniently ignoring that the department has chosen to hollow out its Diplomatic Security corps and instead hand over the task to a consortium of private firms led by Blackwater under a multibillion-dollar contract.

Waxman's committee, which has already been focused on politically connected companies and contracting corruption in Iraq, has disclosed a series of documents in recent days that reveal some dark patterns with Blackwater. The documents appear to show that the firm cut corners that may have contributed to employee deaths, it may have tried to have documents classified in order to cover up corporate failures, and the State Department's own inspector general may have tried to impede investigations into Blackwater, including threatening to fire any of his inspectors who cooperated with Congress.

Where are our leaders?

Oh yeah. They were all assassinated, one by one, and none dared raise his head so high again.