I can't even watch any of the speeches they make me so fuckin angry.... just blind ignorance and fierce arrogance... an all those Stepford wives, chatty Kathy dolls...drive me insane... am just shouting at the telly at this point. Arnold statement about 'girlie boys' - unbelievable! He's a Nazi, lets face it. It's incredibly scary... have to go read the British news take on this... am flabberghasted!

PS Bravo to everyone getting arrested and protesting... its really really appreciated

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Anna Nicole,

I have got to give a round of applause to the people who managed to infiltrate the convention itself:

The kid from Yale who made it to within 10 feet of Cheney yeaterday.

And the group of AIDS activists who have just today made it onto the floor of the convention and interrupted Andrew Card's speech! Brava!

The log cabin people actually bought a teevee ad, would you believe, asking their own party to be more "tolerant." Ridiculous. That's like asking the capos at the camp to use a less poisonous gas.

OH PLEASE

Don't even get me started on the subject of those quasi-delusional Eva Brauns!

With the ENDLESS horrific hostage situation, the constant death of troops and civilians... and the unrelenting un-rest in Iraq WHEN will BUSH and BLAIR et al realize that their 'solution' does NOT work. - 'Liberating the people of Iraq' my arse! Lies,properganda, xenophobia, dictatorships...and that is all this side of the pond... I think honestly there is very LITTLE difference btw Sadaam and Bush/Blair.... The only thing is, the American lie machine is more sophisticated in its brainwashing and more subtle in its mind/people control over here. Amnesty International at this rate probably has just as many civil abuse cases that stem from the US as abroad!

Things you have to believe to be a Republican today:
>
> 1. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed
> him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a
> good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad
> guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden"
> diversion.
>
> 2. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the
> country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam
> is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
>
> 3. The United States should get out of the
> United Nations, and our highest national priority is
> enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.
>
> 4. A woman can't be trusted with decisions
> about her own body, but multi-national corporations
> can make decisions affecting all mankind without
> regulation.
>
> 5. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of
> homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
>
> 6. The best way to improve military morale is
> to praise the troops in speeches while slashing
> veterans' benefits and combat pay.
>
> 7. If condoms are kept out of schools,
> adolescents won't have sex.
>
> 8. A good way to fight terrorism is to
> belittle our long-time allies, then demand their
> cooperation and money.
>
> 9. Providing health care to all Iraqis is
> sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans
> is socialism.
>
> 10. HMOs and insurance companies have the best
> interests of the public at heart.
>
> 11. Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer
> are junk science, but creationism should be taught in
> schools.
>
> 12. A president lying about an extramarital
> affair is a impeachable offense. A president lying to
> enlist support for a war in which thousands
> die is solid defense policy.
>
> 13. Government should limit itself to the powers
> named in the Constitution, which include banning gay
> marriages and censoring the Internet.
>
> 14. The public has a right to know about
> Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's drunk
> driving record is none of our business.
>
> 15. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a
> crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then
> it's an illness, and you need our prayers
> for your recovery.
>
> 16. You support states' rights, which means
> Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what
> local voter initiatives they have the right to
> adopt.
>
> 17. What Bill Clinton did in his private life
> in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what
> Bush did in his professional and political life in
> the '80s is irrelevant.
>
> 18. John Kerry, after enlisting to fight in
> Vietnam, earning multiple medals for heroism and
> leadership, returns home to lobby against the
> war after his experiences, is "unfit" to be
> Commander-in-Chief, but George Bush getting into the
> Texas Air National Guard through his daddy's influence
> and then repeatedly fails to report for duty because
> he'd rather get drunk and high is better able to
> defend America.
>
> 19. Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment
> Insurance, Welfare, even public education are all
> dangerous socialism, but corporate welfare,
> bailing out companies, allowing off-shore
> incorporation to avoid taxes are all free market
> policies.
>
> 20. Government should not interfere with the
> business, commercial, environmental welfare of the
> nation, but should control and regulate citizen's
> personal affairs.
>
> Instead of out-sourcing billions of our tax dollars to
> an oil-rich country, how about demanding those taxes
> be spent on US schools, US hospitals and US
> infrastructure? Why is deficit spending ok when it
> comes to war but terrible when it comes to making life
> better for Americans?

On Thursday, the US officially adopted a very Orwellian program called US-VISIT at all of its borders. All visitors to this country will be face-scanned and fingerprinted and the data will be shared throughout the government and perhaps with our "allies" under the guise of combatting terrorism. This information will be retained for 75-100 years, linked to a profiling system and there do not seem to be an adequate safeguards in place to correct mistakes or prevent abuse. Other countries, naturally, will soon be following in our footsteps. In our fear and paranoia, we have just surrendered any right we might have had to travel freely.
Scarey biscuits indeed!

Anyone who thinks that this program will be used solely to fight terrorism should think again.

An interesting report on the subject can be found at:

http://www.privacyinternational.org

This message has been edited. Last edited by: hatches,

I can only imagine how bad it soon will get for someone like myself who enjoys visiting places where Club-Med fear to tred. I dream of visiting, Ethiopia and Beruit...but regularly visit Kingston, JA. Its all gonna be on my profile that I MUST be 'BAD' cos why else would you go there. My ex-shag the judge used to say "why the fuck would u got to Africa, there's nothing there but hungry dying people and AIDS" ... HIS VERY words, and he is a court JUDGE. need I say more........

Importation for small buisnesses is being totally obliterated with the present anti-terror fear climate. I work for an Aromatherapy store in the Village which gathers pure essential oils from all over the world (often directly from the distillers/farms) and then sells them retail. The present Anti-bio Hazard laws are ruining us. We can no longer get oils that we need and losing customers and business as a result. My boss has had to pay large fees to several different customs agents and brokers for the same shipmenet as it bounces from one agency to another, and none of those people in customs knows what the hell an essential oil is or if it's something dangerous or not. We talk to other small buisnesses which depend on imports for their sales and they are also having these kind of problems. We have long lists of customers who are waiting for items that normally we would have in a few days after ordering, and now it is taking months if at all. THe Bush Administration is not helping the small buisnesses at all. Besides this, there are the horrendous huge chain store conglomerates that are swallowing up everyone. The Rite-aids, Dunkin Donuts etc. who pay thier "hate their job" workers minimum wage who then treat their customers with utter contempt. The new economic vision for the future is one of huge inhuman conglomerates and the masses shoving for the chance to work for minimum wage in an increasingly brutal environment. THe French Minister of the Interior was on the BRian Leher show last week on WNYC and he said how Bush is moving the world closer back to the Law of the Jungle. I believe that also applies to the US economic climate of moving towards the brutality of the unbridaled capitalism that Bush and his Cronies seem to worship and adore. The only real "Trickle Down effect" that I can see under such a completely laissez-faire economic model which they seem hell-bent on accomplishing, is one in which the blood of the lower classes trickles down off of the wheels of "free" commerce. Thus the wheels of commerce are lubricated. The irony of it all is that the government "hands off" only applies to the big corporations, while the little private stores and businesses get stamped out of existence..

I agree Stacey, it's as if the Robber Barons have taken over again. The only difference this time is that these capitalists did not work their way up from scratch and bear with them that endearing Nineteenth Century guilt which caused the Morgans, Rockefellers and Carnegies to channel their wealth into lofty institutions and projects that they were sure would both benefit society and save their own souls from the fires of hell. This present day capitalist spirit comes straight from the middle classes, has boundless greed, no conscience, and despite all the accompanying claptrap, is intensely secular. This is a country in which all our political leaders are millionaires, and one in which the division between wealth and abject poverty has not been more clearly defined since the Twelfth Century.

And, AN, reading your post reminded me of this:
Even before 9/11 I found that various and sundry US and local officials, including the NYPD, were unable to even read a US Passport properly... Because of the way one's name is written on a passport, it confuses them-- as if they have never seen such a document before! I even had one such petty bureaucrat try to tell me that a passport was not a valid form of ID! (It is, of course.) I asked him why a document that enabled me to cross international borders worldwide was not good enough for him. This is a country that has never seen itself as being part of the world community and Bush & Co. have seriously reinforced that.
I have gotten used to being treated as a second-class citizen because I do not drive, am often up at odd and forbidden hours, and do not work a nine-to-five job. And now the fact that I might well travel to Kingston, Juarez, Malta, or Bora Bora even, I am sure will seal my suspicious status.

Stacy.. interesting that you mentioned that Biohazard new law.. it only came into effect recently - I found this out as I get biscuits (cookies) shipped in from our London office ..to me here in NYC and I got this really funny call saying that my cookie package had to be destroyed unless i had a commercial license!! etc.. I had to sign all these documents and fax back to confirm the destroying of 4 packets of biscuits and a box of tea bags!!
Needless to say... I have found a way to get out of this... If its not shipped to a business address but is sent person to person we seem to get away with it!! How funny is this... my boss only smokes British cigs so I am currently shipping in cigs and biscuits and all sorts of tidbits from Blighty sent from one person to another as birthday gift and it gets in no prob...
Which of course makes NO sense cos any terrorist would prob not mailing hazzardous material from a business address to another... So try it out get the oils sent person to person !

Thank you Anna. I'm going to definetly pass that on to my beautiful boss. She has been going out of her mind with this present situation.

Hattie, that's a great comparison of the present Neo-Con Corporate pigs with the Robber Barons of the 19th Century. It's so true. AS viciously cut-throat as they were, many became impressive philantropists. Today there seems to be a strange marriage between Fundamentalist "Christianity" and shear greed. The Bush admin is full of both (and full of something else as well). The only "help" for the poor is to be "faith-based", meaning no funds, but plenty of prosteltizing.

Anna, I used to work for an African who imported a lot of commercial items and personal items from Nigeria through JFK via airfreight and it could be a two or three day hair pulling trial to get everything through customs. But we found out that for smaller personal shipments we could just have them sent via postal mail or a foreign express mail service and everything got through with no customs interferrence at all. And we were shipping in things like exotic dried electric fish, rare curative herbs, lotions and liquid concoctions ( this was all paraphrenalia for the work of shamanistic healing methods ) in packages that sometimes weighed over 30 lbs. ! So much for national security.

Acc. to the Herald Tribune last week, foodstuffs made in the USA, Canada and Argentina from genetically modified materials are all being cited by the EU and others to be completely banned from import. So if you're in Paris and want Kellogg's cornflakes, fuggedaboudit. Way to go, Bushie, helping our economy!!

Alot of this hysteria about products from other countries is a retaliation against these coming and/or present sanctions against our genetically modified foods.

http://www.iht.com/articles/542067.html

"Here in Europe - where food is high culture, if not a religion - farmers, consumers, chefs and environmental groups have joined voices to loudly and stubbornly oppose bioengineered foods, effectively blocking their arrival at the farms and on the tables of the continent. And that, in turn, has created a huge ripple effect on trade and politics from North America to Africa.
.
The United States, Canada and Argentina have filed a complaint that is pending before the World Trade Organization contending that European laws and procedures that discriminate against genetically modified products are irrational and unscientific, and so constitute an unfair trade barrier.
.
U.S. companies like Monsanto, which invested heavily in the technology, suffered huge losses when Europe balked."

As per other discussions here, I did see the fingerprint-recording machines in the airports in Munich as well as in JFK... so over-the-top it really leaves one breathless. If nothing else, the margin of error could be considerable. On the face of it, many folks will not even want to visit the USA... in reverse paranoia that they could possibly be put on some database incorrectly by USA worker-slaves in a Third World country and thereby have their ability to travel ruined.

FASCINATING campaign by UK paper, The Guardian. Since foreigners cannot contribute money to the campaign, the paper has devised a scheme to put individual Guardian readers in touch with individual voters in Clark County, Ohio -- a crucial county in a crucial swing state. Readers who want to participate will receive by email the name and postal address of a Clark County voter to whom they can write. Read on:

My fellow non-Americans ...

The result of the US election will affect the lives of millions around the world but those of us outside the 50 states have had no say in it - until now. In a unique experiment, G2 has assembled a democratic toolkit to enable people from Basildon to Botswana to campaign in the presidential race. And with a little help from the folks in Clark County, Ohio, you might help decide who takes up residence in the White House next month. Oliver Burkeman explains how

Get the name of a US voter

Wednesday October 13, 2004
The Guardian
Guardian

It's just possible that you have heard this once or twice before recently, but the forthcoming American election, on November 2, may be the most important in living memory. People have been saying this about every presidential race for decades - but, as one environmentalist put it recently in a US newspaper interview, precisely the problem with crying wolf is that sometimes there is a wolf. You would be forgiven, though, for feeling increasingly helpless as you hear the "most important election" mantra repeated daily: unless you happen to be a voter in a handful of swing states, there's little you can do about the final result. If you're not American, the situation is more acute. Certainly, the actions of the US impact on our lives in overwhelming ways; British political life may now be at least as heavily influenced by White House policy as by the choices of UK voters. And yet, though the US Declaration of Independence speaks of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind", you don't, of course, have a vote. You can't even donate money to the campaigns: foreign contributions are outlawed. And you're unlikely to have the chance to do any campaigning on the ground. All you can do is wait and watch: you're powerless.

Or are you? At G2, that sounded like fighting talk. Where others might see delusions of grandeur, we saw an opportunity for public service - and so, on the following pages, we have assembled a handy set of tools that non-Americans can use to have a real chance of influencing the outcome of the vote. We've identified ways to give money to help your preferred candidate, even though direct campaign contributions from foreigners aren't allowed. There are ideas for making your voice heard in the influential local media outlets where it could really count. And at the core of it is a unique scheme to match individual Guardian readers to individual American voters, giving you the opportunity to write a personal letter, citizen to citizen, explaining why this election matters to you, and which issues you think ought to matter to the US electorate. It may even be a chance to persuade somebody to use their vote at all.

To maximise the likelihood of your efforts making a difference, we've zeroed in on one of the places where this year's election truly will be decided: Clark County, Ohio, which is balanced on a razor's edge between Republicans and Democrats. In the 2000 election, Al Gore won Clark County by 1% - equivalent to 324 votes - but George Bush won the state as a whole by just four percentage points. This time round, Ohio is one of the most crucial swing states: Kerry and Bush have been campaigning there tire lessly - they've visited Clark County itself - and the most recent Ohio poll shows, once again, a 1% difference between the two of them. The voters we will target in our letter-writing initiative are all Clark County residents, and they are all registered independents, which somewhat increases the chances of their being persuadable.

Several of the ideas described here can easily be applied across the US too, though, and we have provided further resources on our website for this purpose. While there's no point being coy about Britain's preferences in this election (never mind those of Guardain readers) - a poll last month put backing for Kerry at 47%, against 16% for Bush - we have included information for supporters of both main candidates.

It's worth considering at the outset how counterproductive this might all be, especially if approached undiplomatically. Anybody might be justifiably angered by the idea of a foreigner trying to interfere in their democratic process. But this year the issue is more charged than ever: the Bush/Cheney campaign has made a point of portraying Kerry as overly concerned about what other nations think, and the Democrat's ambiguous debate point about American foreign policy decisions needing to pass a "global test" has become one of the president's key lines of attack. "People don't necessarily want to hear what people from other countries have to say," says Rachelle Valladares, the London-based chair of Democrats Abroad. "If you contact someone you know personally in the States, and urge them to vote, it would probably carry twice the weight." Michael Dorf, a Columbia university law professor who has studied foreign influences on US elections, points out that it would not be to either candidate's advantage "to be seen as the candidate of the foreigners. Part of it's just xenophobia, but there is also a sense that, you know, this is our election: you vote for your parliament and prime minister, we vote for our president and Congress."

On the other hand, being from Britain ought to give you a certain leverage: in stump speeches and debates, Bush has repeatedly praised Tony Blair's cooperation over Iraq, making America's long-treasured alliance with the UK key to the president's defence of his foreign policy. Kerry, too, knows that he's speaking to a resilient strand of opinion when he emphasises the need for strong international alliances: a better coalition in Iraq, he constantly reiterates, might have saved US lives. (One recent poll suggested that 43% of Americans think that declining world respect for their nation is a "major problem".) As a British citizen, you can certainly wield some influence, but you could seriously alienate people too.

Write to a voter

The most powerful transatlantic connection is a personal one, so we have designed a system to match individual Guardian readers with individual voters in Clark County, in the crucial swing state of Ohio. To join in, visit www.guardian.co.uk/clarkcounty and enter your email address. You'll receive, by email, the name and postal address of a Clark County voter. We have included only those voters who chose to list themselves as unaffiliated, instead of as Republican or Democrat: that is no guarantee that they are persuadable, of course, but it does increase the chances. The data on which our system is based is publicly available, but we have designed it to give out each address only once, so there is no danger of recipients getting deluged.

In formulating your letter, you will need to introduce yourself: no individual Clark County voter will have any reason to be expecting your communication. And in choosing your arguments, keep in mind the real risk of alienating your reader by coming across as interfering or offensive. You might want to handwrite your letter, for additional impact, and we strongly recommend including your own name and address - it lends far more credibility to your views, and you might get a reply.

Finally, post your letter soon. Letters sent by regular airmail from the UK to the US usually take five days to reach their recipient, and there is little time to waste. Postage costs 43p for a postcard, 47p for a letter weighing 10g or less, and 68p for a letter weighing up to 20g. You don't have to visit a post office, but Royal Mail recommends writing "Par Avion - By Airmail" on the front of the envelope, and your return address on the back.

Give money

American law forbids foreigners from giving money to affect the outcome of a federal election - except that, on closer inspection, it doesn't. You're banned from donating to the campaigns themselves, or to many of the independent campaigning groups that fight explicitly on behalf of one candidate. So you need to identify officially non-partisan groups whose activities, none the less, have the practical effect of helping one candidate over the other. "Perhaps the most important way foreigners could help John Kerry would be to help out those organisations which have, as part of their mission, fostering African-American voter turnout," says Nathaniel Persily, a Pennsylvania university expert on election law. "It's quite clear that if there was 100% African-American turnout in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, John Kerry would win this election running away." The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the most obvious choice here - an influential, well-organised, non-partisan body whose get-out-the-vote activities are extremely likely to end up helping the Democrats.

"On the Republican side, it would be the Christian conservatives," Persily adds. "[Bush adviser] Karl Rove has tried to register four million additional Christian evangelicals, and if they all turn out, then Bush wins." The leading option here would be the Christian Coalition, which describes itself as "America's leading grassroots organisation defending our Godly heritage". As for more overtly partisan organisations, we don't recommend trying to donate - but it's worth pointing out that much of the law banning foreign contributions has never been tested in court and, argues Michael Dorf at Columbia, may even be unconstitutional on grounds of free speech. "If a group calling itself Europeans for Truth wants to run ads giving their view of the truth," Dorf says, "it's hard to draw a principled distinction between that and a British newspaper available at a US newsstand that has an editorial calling Bush and Blair liars."

Visit the NAACP website: http://www.naacp.org
Give to the NAACP: https://www.naacp.org/contribute.php or fax a credit-card donation to 001 410 580 5623.
Give to the NAACP in Ohio:
Send a money order marked "donation" to NAACP, 233 South High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215 USA. Give to the Christian Coalition: www.cc.org or phone 001 202 479 6900.
Give to the Christian Coalition in Ohio: www.ccohio.org or phone 001 330 8871922, or send a money order to Christian Coalition of Ohio, PO Box 852, Westfield Center, Ohio 44251, USA. For resources on giving money in other swing states, visit www.guardian.co.uk/clarkcounty.
Make your voice heard

If you want to broadcast your views to a wider audience, focus on the media outlets swing-state residents are reading and hearing. Take care: deluging the same organisation with numerous near-identical messages rarely impresses (we speak from experience), and some activists have run into controversy recently by disseminating "astroturf" - letters purporting to be personal but emanating, in reality, from party headquarters. Springfielders read the Springfield News Sun (www.springfieldnewssun.com;) and the Columbus Dispatch (www.dispatch.com), based in the nearby state capital, is another influential outlet.

If you're feeling brave, though, you might want to explore the highly influential talk-radio airwaves. On the right, the overarchingly dominant figure is Rush Limbaugh, heard on hundreds of stations nationwide, including 19 in Ohio, some of which can be heard in Clark County. This is a strictly at-your-own-risk proposition, but if you want to join the debate, listen to the show live on the web at www.rushlimbaugh.com, between 5pm and 8pm UK time every weekday, and call in on 001 800 282 2882. Among yesterday's topics: why John Kerry doesn't understand the significance of 9/11; why John Kerry would be dangerous for America; how John Kerry politicised the death of Christopher Reeve.

Air America, the upstart liberal radio counterweight, is still in its infancy, but it can be picked up in parts of Ohio and other battleground states. Listen to the flagship show presented by the leftwing humourist Al Franken at www.airamericaradio.com, also between 5pm and 8pm on weekdays, then call in on 001 866 303 2270 (neither call will be free from the UK). Franken's focus yesterday was the "absolutely shameless" behaviour of the conservative media in America.

You can target your message on other key states by visiting a website such as www.electoral-vote.com, which updates regularly with the latest local polls, so that you can identify where the race is currently closest. Select your state, then call up a list of relevant media contacts - or even send them emails directly - via the impressively comprehensive Capitol Advantage site at http://ssl.capwiz.com/congressorg/dbq/media/.

Win the chance to campaign on the ground

We are offering the four people who write the most persuasive letters to Clark County voters the chance to travel there and campaign in person. At the end of October, the winners will accompany a group of Guardian journalists to Ohio to meet voters and participate in the closing days of the race. For a chance to take part, you should email a copy of your letter to clark.county@guardian.co.uk, or send a copy to Clark County competition, G2, The Guardian, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER. Letters should arrive no later than October 20.

· For more details on how you can get involved and latest news from the US campaign trail, go to guardian.co.uk/uselections2004. For terms and conditions of the Clark County competition, see www.guardian.co.uk/clarkcounty.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Michael Madison,

I like all these schemes for foreign participation in the election a lot. But it really points out what a shambles the voting process here has become. I like how, recently, foreign countries have been floating offers to send polling place observers to the US to monitor voting activity the way Jimmy Carter leads organizations to places in Central America as observers during elections there. Now we hear daily reports on voter registration fraud and intimidation tactics rife in states like Florida, Colorado and Nevada. If the most fundamental element of this democracy, the institution of voting, is now totally corrupted then whoever wins any election is only really an approximate winner. And every election will be open to being contested in courts, subjected to interminable delays in voting recounts and verifications -and those processes are no reassurance anyway- to the point where you can easily see how this all could become like Afghanistan where 140% of the population is registered to vote, one person is able to vote 35 times, and the computer-based voting machines have no system to verify anything at all. Maybe we could select a president by just holding a lying contest to see who can mouth the most bloated, respect-crushing deception while retaining a facade of perfect dignity and decorum.

Gorgeously written NYT editorial today endorsing Kerry, which spells it all out concisely:

John Kerry For President

Im currently reading former secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill's story "The Price of Loyalty" - writer Suskind lays the last 4 years of Bush policy-making bare - its unbelievable, frightening and incredibly entertaining.