Will Bush Cancel The 2008 Election?

I originally posted this back in May and have taken it down, along with all of my other "political pieces", reposted it, taken it down and then reposted it again, all based on my wildly fluctuating desire to continue working as a Management Consultant and have money again versus my political spiritual fuck it who needs money all that much anyway stance that seems to be winning out. Anyway . . .

I have been saying for almost 4 years now that I have never believed that Bush would leave office at the end of his term and that he would try to do something like start a war in 2007-2008 so that he could say it was a national emergency and remain President. This would keep the Bushies in power and keep them from also going to jail (where we know they belong and where they know they belong, as well).

This was a prediction I made years back and I hope it is not correct but it would not surprise me if this is not what happens. Everything I said in 2002-2003, though wildly unpopular at the time and a cause for many an upturned righteously indignant nose being pointed in my direction, has so far pretty much all been proven to have been correct.

I hope this does not come to pass but I believe it is better than 50/50 that there will never be another elected president in this country and about 60/40 that Bush will not step down as President in 2008. My opinion only, of course, but it is what I have been saying since 2003.

The Revolution will not be televised--IT WILL BE LIVE.

I found the following article on commondreams.org (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/31/2874/) and thought I would pass it along as there are evidently others who seem to share my same fears.

Published on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Will Bush Cancel The 2008 Election?
by Harvey Wasserman & Bob Fitrakis

It is time to think about the "unthinkable."

The Bush Administration has both the inclination and the power to cancel the 2008 election.

The GOP strategy for another electoral theft in 2008 has taken clear shape, though we must assume there is much more we don't know.

But we must also assume that if it appears to Team Bush/Cheney/Rove that the GOP will lose the 2008 election anyway (as it lost in Ohio 2006) we cannot ignore the possibility that they would simply cancel the election. Those who think this crew will quietly walk away from power are simply not paying attention.

The real question is not how or when they might do it. It's how, realistically, we can stop them.

In Florida 2000, Team Bush had a game plan involving a handful of tactics. With Jeb Bush in the governor's mansion, the GOP used a combination of disenfranchisement, intimidation, faulty ballots, electronic voting fraud, a rigged vote count and an aborted recount, courtesy of the US Supreme Court.

A compliant Democrat (Al Gore) allowed the coup to be completed.

In Ohio 2004, the arsenal of dirty tricks exploded. Based in Columbus, we have documented more than a hundred different tactics used to steal the 20 electoral votes that gave Bush a second term. More are still surfacing. As a result of the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal lawsuit (in which we are plaintiff and attorney) we have now been informed that 56 of the 88 counties in Ohio violated federal law by destroying election records, thus preventing a definitive historical recount.

As in 2000, a compliant Democrat (John Kerry) allowed the coup to proceed.

For 2008 we expect the list of vote theft maneuvers to escalate yet again. We are already witnessing a coordinated nationwide drive to destroy voter registration organizations and to disenfranchise millions of minority, poor and young voters.

This carefully choreographed campaign is complemented by the widespread use of electronic voting machines. As reported by the Government Accountability Office, Princeton University, the Brennan Center, the Carter-Baker Commission, US Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and others, these machines can be easily used to flip an election. They were integral to stealing both the 2000 and 2004 elections. Efforts to make their source codes transparent, or to require a usable paper trail on a federal level, have thus far failed. A discriminatory Voter ID requirement may also serve as the gateway to a national identification card.

Overall, the GOP will have at its command even more weapons of election theft in 2008 than it did in Ohio 2004, which jumped exponentially from Florida 2000. The Rovian GOP is nothing if not tightly organized to do this with ruthless efficiency. Expect everything that was used these past two presidential elections to surface again in 2008 in far more states, with far more efficiency, and many new dirty tricks added in.

But in Ohio 2006, the GOP learned a hard lesson. Its candidate for governor was J. Kenneth Blackwell. The Secretary of State was the essential on-the-ground operative in the theft of Ohio 2004.

When he announced for governor, many Ohioans joked that "Ken Blackwell will never lose an election where he counts the votes."

But lose he did….along with the GOP candidates for Secretary of State, Attorney-General and US Senate.

By our calculations, despite massive grassroots scrutiny, the Republicans stole in excess of 6% of the Ohio vote in 2006. But they still lost.

Why? Because they were so massively unpopular that even a 6% bump couldn't save them. Outgoing Governor Bob Taft, who pled guilty to four misdemeanors while in office, left town with a 7% approval rating (that's not a typo). Blackwell entered the last week of the campaign down 30% in some polls.

So while the GOP still had control of the electoral machinery here in 2006, the public tide against them was simply too great to hold back, even through the advanced art and science of modern Rovian election theft.

In traditional electoral terms, that may also be the case in 2008. Should things proceed as they are now, it's hard to imagine any Republican candidate going into the election within striking distance. The potential variations are many, but the graffiti on the wall is clear.

What's also clear is that this administration has a deep, profound and uncompromised contempt for democracy, for the rule of law, and for the US Constitution. When George W. Bush went on the record (twice) as saying he has nothing against dictatorship, as long as he can be dictator, it was a clear and present policy statement.

Who really believes this crew will walk quietly away from power? They have the motivation, the money and the method for doing away with the electoral process altogether. So why wouldn't they?

The groundwork for dismissal of both the legislative and judicial branch has been carefully laid. The litany is well-known, but worth a very partial listing:

The continuation of the drug war, and the Patriot Act, Homeland Security Act and other dictatorial laws prompted by the 9/11/2001 terror attacks, have decimated the Bill of Rights, and shredded the traditional American right to due process of law, freedom from official surveillance, arbitrary violence, and far more.

The current Attorney-General, Alberto Gonzales, has not backed away from his announcement to Congress that the Constitution does not guarantee habeas corpus. The administration continues to act on the assumption that it can arrest anyone at any time and hold them without notification or trial for as long as it wants.

The establishment of the Homeland Security Agency has given it additional hardware to decimate the basic human rights of our citizenry. Under the guise of dealing with the "immigration problem," large concentration camps are under construction around the US.

The administration has endorsed and is exercising its "right" to employ torture, contrary to the Eighth Amendment and to a wide range of international treaties, which Gonzales has labeled "quaint."

With more than 200 "signing statements" the administration acts on its belief that the "unitary executive" trumps the power of the legislative branch in any instance it chooses. This belief has been further enforced with the administration's use of a wide range of precedent-setting arguments to keep its functionaries from testifying before Congress.

There is much more. In all instances, the 109th Congress—and the public—have rolled over without significant resistance.

Most crucial now are Presidential Directive 51, Executive Orders 13303, 13315, 13350, 13364, 13422, 13438, and more, by which Bush has granted himself an immense arsenal of powers for which the term "dictatorial" is a modest understatement.

The Founders established our government with checks and balances. But executive orders have accumulated important precedent. The Emancipation Proclamation by which Lincoln declared an end to slavery in the South, was issued under the "military necessity" of adding blacks to the Union Army, a step without which the North might not have won the Civil War. Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 8802 established the Fair Employment Practices Commission. Harry Truman's Executive Order 9981 desegregated the military.

Most to the point, FDR's Executive Order 9066 ordered the forcible internment of 100,000 people of Japanese descent into the now infamous concentration camps of World War II.

There is also precedent for a president overriding the Supreme Court. In the 1830s Chief Justice John Marshall enshrined the right of the Cherokee Nation to sovereignty over its ancestral land in the Appalachian Mountains. But President Andrew Jackson scorned the decision. Some 14,000 native Americans were moved at gunpoint to Oklahoma. More than 3,000 died along the way.

All this will be relevant should Team Bush envision a defeat in the 2008 election and decide to call it off. It's well established that Richard Nixon—mentor to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney—commissioned the Huston Plan, which detailed how to cancel the 1972 election.

Today we must ask: who would stop this administration from taking dictatorial power in the instance of a "national emergency" such as a terror attack at a nuclear power plant or something similar?

Nothing in the behavior of this Congress indicates that it is capable of significant resistance. Impeachment seems beyond it. Nor does it seem Congress would actually remove Bush if it did put him on trial.

Short of that, Bush clearly does not view anything Congress might do as a meaningful impediment. After all, how many divisions does the Congress command?

The Supreme Court, as currently constituted, would almost certainly rubber stamp a Bush coup. If not, like Jackson, he could ignore it as easily as he would ignore Congress.

What does that leave? There is much idle speculation now about what the armed forces would do. We also hear loose talk about "90 million gun owners."

From the public side, the only conceivable counter-force might be a national strike or an effective long-term campaign of general non-cooperation.

But we can certainly assume the mainstream media will give lock-step support to whatever the regime says and does. It's also a given that those likely to lead the resistance will immediately land in those new prisons being built by Halliburton et. al.

So how do we cope with the harsh realities of such a Bush/Cheney/Rove dictatorial coup?

We may have about a year to prepare. Every possible scenario needs to be discussed in excruciating detail.

For only one thing is certain: denial will do nothing.

HARVEY WASSERMAN'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES is at www.solartopia.org, along with SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030. The FITRAKIS FILES are at www.freepress.org (where this article was originally published), along with HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, which Bob and Harvey co-wrote.

Please join me in supporting Cindy Sheehan's Run for Congress

I am passionate about politics but incredibly cynical about politicians.

However, there is a candidate throwing her hat into the ring whom I feel very strongly about: Cindy Sheehan.

This morning my daughter Riana and I drove into San Francisco to attend Cindy Sheehan's press conference in which she announced her candidacy for the House of Representatives, running against Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Even though we had never met before, Cindy was so warm and gracious and it was truly like hanging out with an old friend--this in the midst of what had to be a very stressful time with cameras and CNN and an upcoming trip tomorrow to the Middle East.

So much of what she said rang so true. I must admit to feeling such a very strong kinship with Cindy both as a human and as a political analyst because Cindy's analytics as to the hows and whys of what is happening in the world are very cogent and well-spoken.

She understands the implications of current policies very well. I was really impressed with both her knowledge and passion and, on top of that, she just seemed like a really good person, someone you would like to invite over and hang with.

I hope all of you will take notice of her candidacy and support her efforts. She said so many things that I agree with 100% but (as many of us with the same viewpoints know all too well) it takes REAL courage to say some of them out loud--no matter how true they may be.

I talked to her both before and after her speech and more than ever I am convinced she is the real thing.

Daniel Ellsberg was also there and I had a chance to speak with him, as well.

Here is a picture of Cindy and I that I found on yahoo (I am the unidentified man in the picture--not a very flattering angle LOL but . . .



Cindy's slogan is People before Politics. Cindy told me that her concerns are "peace, accountability, sustainability and humanity". I think perhaps more than anyone I know Cindy has put her neck on the line to draw attention to these issues.

Over the coming months, Cindy will be leading a grass roots campaign meeting with voters asking people what they are really concerned about.

As she said "I think that is what a good rep does." And I agree.

For more updates, please check out her website:
http://www.cindyforcongress.com/

Also, Cindy is on myspace, too. Here is her myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/campcaseymom

It is time that we stand up to make a difference--together.

Rich man's war; poor man's blood.

So true and now it is even more blatantly fucked up than ever before--because we, as a country, at least from the top down perspective, are more fucked up than ever before.

Our leadership sucks; they don't give a fuck about us.

All they care about is "shareholder profits" and unless you own a big (and I mean BIG) wad of stock in Halliburton, or Blackwater, or Exxon or some other rich white boy tool then why in the Hell would you give a shit about fighting in Iraq?

Can you tell me?

If someone invades our country we will ALL take to the streets to stop them with steak knives and baseball bats and anything else we can find. But this war in Iraq is ONLY about money and the trickle down theory on that money "don't trickle down too damn far".

AND . . . If we truly want to show our support to our troops why don't we do something unique like take care of them when they come home and help them then and not throw them to the curb if they are no longer "effective".

In business, people are "resources" to be plugged in wherever and discarded whenever. That sucks but the military is worse. If the Army gave a shit they would not let these men and women suffer in such dreadful circumstances after they are injured--and you can be injured mentally as well as physically.

This is class warfare against the poor. Our poor.

Stop this war. NOW. Bring the troops home in a safe orderly way. It has been too long, long long ago. Stop the war NOW.

A Time to Heal

Like all of us I am terribly saddened by the tragedy this week in Blacksburg. But on Monday morning, like many others, I was on pins and needles so terribly afraid that someone I loved was there and perhaps in harm’s way. The difference, perhaps, between my fears and the fears of others that tragic morning was that if anything happened to my dear friend, my “second mother”, (a woman whom I had just spoken with and joked with less than 30 hours before the shootings began), I felt confident that I would hear about it pretty quickly because my dear friend is a celebrity, a poet, a cultural icon.

Her name is Nikki Giovanni.

I think it is important that in this hour of tragedy we embrace the feelings we have and not try to move on too quickly. Nikki and I spoke at length Saturday about mourning and the process of grieving—Nikki recently lost both her mother and sister and her dear friend Rosa Parks, a woman whose courage and dignity continue to inspire us, and I lost my beautiful baby daughter Lehna—and both of us know and feel this sense of loss so profoundly.

A tragedy, a death, is not something to just brush aside and “move on past”. It is a gaping hole that will never, really, be filled. I know that Nikki loves Virginia Tech and Blacksburg and I am glad that she is there to help the healing process along.

She has helped me and propped me up in days of my own personal darkness and she has been such a comfort and inspiration to me and all the others we have known together for over 23 years now and I can think of no one better qualified in all the world to help the students and staff of Virginia Tech to work through this pain and take those necessary baby steps towards planting their feet once more on solid ground than Nikki.

I know all of us hurt now, a lot, but I believe the wise thing is to accept that we hurt, acknowledge that we have a right to hurt, and not try too quickly to mask the pain but rather accept that we are hurt and allow ourselves time and space to heal in whatever manner is appropriate to each of us.

I lost my darling daughter on March 5, 2006—she was stillborn after a seemingly perfect pregnancy—and my world has never been, and will never be, the same again. For all the parents who have lost a child or who see your children in pain because they have lost someone they loved, my heart breaks for you and I offer you my deepest sympathy and send whatever love and hope one can send to you.

Your heart will continue to break so please allow yourself whatever time you need to work through this. For those wonderful students and members of the Hokie Nation, I offer my respect and best wishes and pray that you will find the strength to pull each other up together and can take the wisdom you will find from addressing this tragedy and make a life for yourselves and others that you can feel proud of.

This tragedy does not reflect negatively against you. I know that you all will rise together and do great things and we in other parts of America look to you and offer our hopes to you and we pray that you will allow us to love you and hold you in our hearts.

I hope that in our grief we can continue to uphold the highest standards and show dignity and respect to all people; I am referring to the Korean-American community and the family of Cho Seung-Hoi, who have not only lost a child or brother or nephew but also now feel the pain of knowing that their world will be changed in ways that are probably not really fair to them. I hope that all of us can show compassion to his family and realize that they hurt, too.

It is easy to blame, not so easy to understand and forgive but I beg all of you to show compassion not only to one another but to all those who are perhaps judged guilty in the court of public opinion due to their association with this boy: this includes not only his immediate family but all Korean-American citizens and also those who may have played a passive part in Cho’s rampage by selling him the guns or ammo. It is not their fault this happened and I implore you all once again to show love and embrace one another and not stoop to finger-pointing or divisiveness.

Nikki’s kindness and praise is something I have always cherished (she, too, was my teacher and it is especially chilling to me to know that Cho was a playwright and took a class with Nikki; I was a college playwright and most definitely “the teacher’s pet” in an advanced poetry class with Nikki at Ohio State in 1984) and I feel confident that she will be a guide and comfort to you all in this time of grieving, as she has been to me so many times. I want to end with words taken from a poem by Nikki, “We Go On” from her latest book, “Acolytes”:

. . . We go on

Because we have good men and women
Good boys and girls
Good people
Who want this history
Others would destroy
To live

Spirituality and the Will to Power

One of the most amazing features of American life and "values" is the co-opting of the "Hard Core Religious"--I see this as "different" than the "Religious Right"--to support agendas that are so totally "un-Christian".

The rich man and the camel and the eye of the needle--remember THAT story, where did it go? We are bombarded with Bible verses supporting all this bull shit governmental policy but never does it dawn on any one that Christian values are at its core love, sharing, charity and goodness--not corporatism and greed and killing in "God's name".

The deeply religious too easily get sucked in to the corporation "Religion USA" and that makes it difficult sometimes to dialogue with them regarding how wrong the war in Iraq really is; WE are the devil now.

Many good people get caught up in the big-time PR campaigns of the Church and don't take it upon themselves to really question "the message".

Nietzsche's concept of "will to power" is often invoked as indicative of the "way things are". On one level, I can certainly understand that; a very strong case can be made that the "will to power" is a prevalent part of all of history. However, the fallacy, to me, is that because this instinct is there, that it is right.

I don't believe it is. I believe ALL wars are bad, violence is bad, and that goodness of spirit should over-ride the bullshit that we see happening around us now.

Great societies, great advances, all working towards destruction and death and breaking apart the world they created. A simpler friendlier BETTER world is one to work towards: less things more compassion, less will, more sweetness.

Nothing wrong with wanting a sane world without war--that doesn't make me weak it makes me stronger. Longer life better life peace to all. If no one starts a war there is no need to defend--that is the logic I am invoking.

If we, somehow, can collectively rise above this as a planetary unit then wars would not be necessary and we could live in some form of harmony with one another.

I realize there have always been attackers and always a need to defend. I understand that; I know history very well.

HOWEVER, there is still no GOOD reason to go to war and the optimal position is to rise above this. Peace should be the goal.

Sometimes that is not possible and that is sad. But it SHOULD be possible and I don't think it out and out impossible to attain.

Different mindset, that would be needed first--an understanding, not a vague conceptual understanding but a firm I KNOW understanding of the spiritual principles underscoring all life; with that we can rise above war and violence and greed.

To touch the spirit--that will change your thinking. I have been guilty too long of wanting women and money and things and I regret that now. I knew better all along but allowed myself to be seduced into short-term things.

The path of the spirit is the true WAY. Peace, love, God. All that IS.

Beth Sover: Galaxy Girl

Beth Stover is an artist whose work integrates her childhood sense of wonder with a refined sense of spirituality. In her work, Beth explores themes of spiritual longing and through her depiction of her Galaxy Girls series she expands upon that spiritual vision with an exploration of cosmic themes, such as astrology and universal consciousness.

A successful graphic designer and illustrator for the past twenty years, Beth continues to expand her creative vision through her work. A loving mother, she incorporates the lessons learned through motherhood with memories of her own childhood as a Kansas farm girl, a childhood filled with a longing for union and knowledge of the greater world at large.

But one lesson motherhood provided her is one that most people would choose not to learn. Beth's second child died in utero after a perfect pregnancy. A beautiful perfectly formed and fully developed child, Lehna Jordann Brewer was brought into the world stillborn.

Grief is a transformative experience. After Lehna's death, Beth began working through her sense of loss with the tools at hand, in her case, canvas and brush. She then suddenly became conscious of butterflies all around her and through a series of synchronicities she began to equate the beauty and rebirth of this fabulous creature with her darling lost child.

Always drawn to the bright colors and interaction of music, color, and movement she observed as a child at the circus, Beth transforms that vision while using that same color palette in her work today. Calliopes, dancing bears, clowns and those daring acrobats of the flying trapeze inspire her. She strives to bring forth that sense of beauty and innocence, in conjunction with her longing for spiritual transcendence, through her use of color and her depiction of movement and form.

Through her many travels to Europe and throughout the United States, as well as her continual exploration of the world within, she is well equipped to comment on the alchemical dictum as above, so below. Inspired also by her love of techno and world music, she translates the rhythm she feels into a fully realized vision of a greater more beautiful world, a world where spirit and movement and cosmic consciousness merge. It is through her art that she lives most fully and through her life that she most fully expresses her vision and her art.

Conspiracies, Enron, 9/11: What the ?

I, LITERALLY, wrote the Disaster Recovery Plan for Enron. When Enron went to an outsourcing arrangement with CSC (May, 1999), I was part of the executive transition team and as part of my job I analyzed all of their billing, metering, customer service, accounting, etc departments and I knew (back when Jeff Skilling was always being called a genius and Enron was the most innovative company in the world--remember those days, well I was there) and also told my boss--(the 2nd in command of CSC Energy Services)--that Enron was going to have PROBLEMS soon.

I didn't know they would have the problems they had or the degree of shit they would face but I knew it was a house of cards then (in 1999). Also, I came to California working for another company (early 2001) and was here during those rolling blackouts and I knew in my heart with 100% certainty it was because of "spot deals" by Enron and the way they transported energy.

It doesn't strain the laws of probability or credulity to say that energy companies had a large hand in determining policy early in the Bush-Cheney presidency or that the dauphin King George II was the front person for the imperial regent, Sir Dick and his highness Lord Rumstud. Iraq is likely a result of a land-grab oil grab plan and Walt Disney could have ruled Iraq and they would have invaded any way because Mickey and Donald probably would have WMD's in their over-sized shoes.

Is 9-11 an inside job? Certainly, again, based on the evidence, not that far-fetched an idea. How many billion dollar fighter jets do we have in the US? If we flew a baby Cessna off-course towards Manhattan or downtown DC do you think we could just float along untouched? Or how is it possible that these mammothly TALL buildings just collapsed, imploded, without falling on all the other mammothly tall buildings in that part of New York. I have been there and worked there and let me tell you there is not a lot of room for a skyscraper to "fall over" without hitting SOMETHING unless it was "pulled" and went straight down--which means explosives would probably need to be located at strategic points throughout the building--more than just two planes. Plus there was a building that wasn't even hit that went "poof" and fell down in seconds besides the Twin Towers.

There are tons of things on the web showing the scientific reasons why the Twin Towers could not have just fallen over as they did UNLESS they were scheduled for demolition. Check out myspace for TONS of links to some stuff that will fry your mind and make you want to take to the streets.

Getting back to Enron, I believe it is very possible, if not highly likely, that there was some influence by Enron to artificially suggest shortages in hopes of inflating their fees in the blackouts of 2001. I don't know that but that was certainly what I believed at the time.

The only possible links between 9/11 and Enron would stem from a bias in thinking within certain business leaders whose ultimate purpose MAY have been to create a political climate in which plans to invade Iraq (as an adjunct to basic strategic business initiatives) would be "acceptable" to the public at large.

I am not saying ENRON is behind 9/11 or anything like that. NOT AT ALL.

But, the business cabal--what is often called the New World Order--driving policy (because policy is certainly driven by business; sometimes I think we as common people are not even allowed on the bus) TOWARDS an artificial manufacturing of a political climate in which the invasion of Iraq could be seen as just and necessary is very possible, if not downright probable.

It is, again my opinion, a very strong likelihood that ALL policy in the US is now ultimately corporate policy at some level.

If this were true (and of course we don't know if it is or not but--in my opinion--it is certainly not out of hand impossible) then it is possible that 9/11 could have been either 1) planned or 2) simply recognized as convenient and acted upon with lightening speed for doctrinal guidelines already developed.

The manner in which these buildings fell over is, to me, VERY suspicious.

I think we have to really consider the possibility that business leaders, specifically those with high level ties to the energy business, acting in such a way as to promote self-interests that would fly in the face of what most Americans would consider fair play is pretty likely and it is not a big leap (again my opinion) to think that Iraq and 9/11 were orchestrated in some way OTHER than what we have been lead to believe.

The truth WILL set you free.