contributions

by Wayne Besen
If America doesn’t wake up, it will soon become a big, dumb second-tier nation that values miracles over math and superstition over science. Thanks to the Republican’s embrace of anti-intellectualism and demagogic fundamentalism, we are already halfway there.
In the October 17 edition of the New York Times Magazine, Ron Suskind interviewed a key Bush aide that described the administration’s rejection of enlightenment principles. The aide chastised Suskind for living “in (…)

by Manuel Valenzuela
If the sands of time and the passing of the seasons tell humanity anything, it is the inevitable push forward that drives our species, the collective tidal wave surging us away from the darkness of archaic thought and past conservative ideology, and into realms of evolution and progress. For evolution of society and thought is as inevitable as that of nature and Earth, a construct of universal energy pushing life forward, not backwards, towards betterment, not (…)

by Steve Rosenfeld, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman December 7, 2004
The bitter battle over the stolen November 2 election in Ohio has turned into a rapidly escalating all-out multi-front war with the outcome of the real presidential vote count increasingly in doubt.
In Columbus, major demonstrations on Saturday, December 4, have been followed by an angry confrontation between demonstrators and state police at the office of Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, the (…)

http://www.projo.com
December 7, 2004
Providence Journal
NEW YORK
I’M SORRY I didn’t vote for Ralph Nader.
Yes, I know it would have been a quixotic gesture, and on some moral level a wasted vote in support of the despicable incumbent. But at least I wouldn’t be burdened with the embarrassment of having voted for the great equivocator from Massachusetts, who disgraced himself with his hasty concession to George Bush on Nov. 3.
The question just hangs there, unanswered: Why did (…)

by Wayne Madsen
The manipulation of computer voting machines in the recent presidential election and the funding of programmers who were involved in the operation are tied to an intricate web of shady off-shore financial trusts and companies, shady espionage operatives, Republican Party politicians close to the Bush family, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract vehicles.
An exhaustive investigation has turned up a link between current Florida Republican (…)

This is a summary of Canadian superiority in the elections arena or WHY CANADIANS DO NOT RIOT AFTER ELECTIONS "Technology and the Voting Process" (Elections Canada; June 15, 1998) http://www.elections.ca/loi/vot/... pages 6 and 40-43
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THE INTEGRITY OF THE CANADIAN VOTING PROCESS "The integrity of the present [voting] system is something to which Canadians attach a HIGH VALUE. But the integrity of [their] electoral system also depends on what Canadians are prepared to accept as a (…)

NEW $2,000 CHALLENGE Due to the popularity of last week’s Wheel of VOTER Challenge 2004 — in which it was paper-trail voting emerged to have an unrivaled mandate — we at WVC headquarters now offer the following $2,000 opportunity for an equally tantalizing issue: We will send a $2,000 cashier’s check to the first election official, politician, statistician, professor, broadcast journalist, blogger, editor, vote machine manufacturer, programmer, Yalees, MITers, anyone who can convince us (…)

audio http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/2004/12/kerry_screwed_recount.mp3
The AP headlines read, "Kerry Joins Ohio Recount Effort" - finally the democratic faithful had something to cheer about. Kerry had joined the recount effort, even though he didn’t appear in public to make a statement on it, to get some media coverage.
As it turns out, the judge ruled that since Cobb and Badnarik won’t be hurt by a late start, he will allow the recount to continue but the results won’t be known (…)

In Iraq, the US does eliminate those who dare to count the dead
by Naomi Klein
David T Johnson,
Acting ambassador,
US Embassy, London
Dear Mr Johnson, On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - (…)

People participating in the UK Local Social forum network met in Sheffield during on the 4/5th december and found consensus on this document to be brought to the Assembly which is going to be held in Paris the 18/19 December
1. The British process to build for the ESF has been, from the proposal of having it in London, organized without an open, democratic, inclusive process. No link has been created with the UK Local Social Forum and, in fact, the very same groups which played a (…)