I think even MORE shocking is that this is NOT news in American media! I think THIS IS NEWS! It still cracks me up the way America talks about the 'state' of Cuba! Cubans mortality rate is higher... there's free health and dental and education.... just no consumerism. Somehow I think we've all been 'conned' and lulled into a sleep with this consumerism..

MLK used to ask, famously, "Why are there forty million poor people in America."

And that was in the '60's.

I'm not much of a Michael Moore fan, but he posted this amazing blog entry from Cindy Sheehan, following her arrest last night at our Capitol building. Sad.
Cindy

Thanks for posting this Michael.... I had the pleasure of working with Michael a few years back and he was a really nice bloke (even when the receptionist at our company kept handing him packages each time he came in thinking he was one of the many messengers for pick up! - LOL) I think there needs to be people like him.

The Republican party is just going to end up being called the Wrong party. Too many examples. New Orleans;wrong. Ms. Sheehan arrested for a t-shirt;wrong. The world is provided with hourly examples.

Only two more years, only two more years, only two more years........

He was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows he's miserable now. He needs one of Vivienne Westwood's new "I am not a terrorist" t-shirts. This is really just beyond the pale:

MORRISSEY QUIZZED BY THE FBI
By Andy Lines

ROCK star Morrissey has revealed he was quizzed by the FBI and Special Branch over his criticism of the US and Britain.

Morrissey, 46, has previously branded George Bush a terrorist and blasted the Iraq war.

The ex-Smiths singer, who lives in Los Angeles, said: "The FBI and Special Branch have investigated me and I've been interviewed and taped.

"They were trying to determine if I was a threat to the government and similarly in England.

"It didn't take them long to realise I'm not."

The star, who said he did not belong to any political group, claimed it showed neither the UK nor America was truly democratic.

He added: "You can't really speak your mind and if you do, you're investigated."

In 2004, Morrissey claimed Mr Bush had made America the world's most "neurotic and terrorobsessed country".

Earlier that year, he told a Dublin gig he wished Mr Bush had died instead of Ronald Reagan.

1971 revisited. Where everyone but everyone had a fat FBI dossier for just wearing tie-die. AmerikkkkkkkkkkkaPara anoy(ed) a.

Morrisey is really, truely, an American, in his blood.

SPEAK OUT.

His voice is kind of like, you know, that thing Betsy Ross sewed up. It was waived around for no other purpose than to proclaim "I am FREE. I can say whatever I want to say and there is not a fucking thing you can do about it."

Wild. England has become the new American.

There are rumblings that Guiliani is seriously mulling a 2008 presidential run. The thought makes me sick, though Bill Frist as president makes me even sicker. Some think he won't do it because for the first time in his life he's making millions in the private sector and is having too much fun. His (third) wife Judith Nathan supposedly supports a presidential run however. (you bet she does!)

The irony is that he is considered "too liberal" by the national Republican machinery because he supports gun control, gay rights and abortion rights. The man is a neo-fascist Machiavellian despot but that is not good enough for the right wing establishment. "Give me Satan or give me death" seems to be the GOP mantra these days. Guiliani's moderate social stance lead many to believe that he doesn't have a serious chance at gaining the Republican nomination, despite his 9/11 popularity and recent in-roads helping GOP candidates across the country. I'm not so sure however. Primaries can have lots of sway, and red state voters are capable of all manner of stupidity -- as we have seen.

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Typical voter climate testing this early in the game. No candidate with an ethnic name from NYC has ever gotten anywhere with a presidential bid. His liberal social stance was just a smidgen of realpolitic that came with the turf of being mayor in NYC where gun control makes sense, gay rights panders to a sizeable voter block and choice for women likewise. His main problem really is that he has prostate cancer. No one in the party hierarchy will really want a clay pidgeon in the oval office. Chalk this up to his hubris. He probably knows he can't win but he needs the candidacy even at the primary level just to round out his autobiography. As a public commentator on news chats he is really vapid. And everyone in the city here knows he runs on a fat streak of vindictiveness. But if Staten Island could tip a national election he probably could win.

what files guilliani didn't shread he took with him after he left office. he hid is tracks very successfully from any scrutiny. the city still doesn't have control of his papers.

and it is a laugh to hear repubs say he is too liberal to run for president on their ticket. running as a self serving effort to look good in print? you say seven? you bet. it's always about him and his demand that art only be created at a level that nine year olds can understand.

What the hell is going on with Hillary Clinton? First she backs the Iraq war 100%, then supprts a bill banning flag burning, now Rupert Murdoch is hosting a fundraiser for her.

I really hope she is not the nominee in 2008. I think it would be a disaster. But before that, New Yorkers need to send her a message in the Senate primary. Jonathan Tasini is running against her from the left in the Democratic Primary in September, and while he has no chance of winning, I think she needs to know that the base of the party is not happy with her.

check out his website here...

http://www.tasinifornewyork.org/

he is not Green Party, he's a Democrat and I'll hold my nose and vote for Hillary in November, but I am glad she'll have some opposition in the primary.

What is with Ann Coulter, what a cunt. Is it just $ shes after or what? I think shes a sociopath. Does anyone even know her story?

I don't know her backstory. But if you clock in to the Drudge Report site - a kind of headline roundup done on a daily basis - every once in a while you will see she is like the poster child for Drudge. (I go to the site fairly regularly because it is fun and informative to know what the conservatives see as important news stories - it ends up being a kind of cheerleading locale for repressive Supreme Court decisions, making anyone and everyone in the entertainment world look like reactionary-slut-quasicommunist-ENEMIES, and a viewpoint on the whole rest of the world as threatening less than civilized troglodytes: real insight in to the conservative world-view that mixes the high and low, print and web sources in an arche-traditionally backward American anti-intellectual, clerical outlook with an emphasis on the three piece suit.) -Anyway, from what I can see Coulter started out with some element of respectability as just another talk-show pundit but has steadily taken a dive to become like some sort of estrogen version of a political Don Rickles. These days she seems to have more in common with Jimmy and Tammy Fae Baker rather than with anyone writing editorials for the Wall Street Journal.

The last year I voted was 2000 - chalk it up to apathy, laziness, reports of voter fraud, you name it - just didn't seem to be worth the trouble. I was eager to tell you that you should vote, even signed up hundreds of folks when I was down in Georgia in 2004.

So, thanks in part to my pal Murray Edelman (see his web site circlevoting.com) and in part to the fact that the world might actually come to its senses again, I'm going to do this thing called participation. The Circle Voting concept is interesting in that it isn't so much a "Get Out The Vote" drive as it is much more simply raising the topic amongst your normal, everyday circles of community, family, co-workers, etc.

If you live in New York you can print the voter registration form off of the web site:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/vac/html/register/register_to_vote.shtml

If you live in one of the other 49 states, the Circle Voting web site has a list of deadlines. Please see:

http://circlevoting.com/registration.html

That is all.

I have been gun shy since the Bush-Kerry race. To invest so much emotion and face such a crippling loss .... I've haven't approached politics with the same gusto again.

Frankly that Time magazine cover gives me the shivers ... I think it's dangerous to prematurely trumpet GOP election losses. We really don't know what's going to happen on Nov 4th. I've underestimated the dogmatism of the Christian Right and overestimated the intelligence of heartland American voters too many times to get my hopes up.

The Idiocracy Machine run by Rove has a complete vertical system for turning out votes based on micro-statistics that target individual neighborhoods in every locale. It is a kind of operant conditioning approach to vote-getting -ring their bell, shake their mobiles, enter their email box, knock on the door-. It is a kind of military style logistical operation run on a megamillions budget they've been saving up for for the past four years. It is actually a very contemptuous view of their own constituency, seeing their voters as really one-track-mind hoi poloi that all can be goaded to pull the Right lever in the booth. It really amounts to a kind of coercion. I get the feeling the senate races will be close with some ground giving way before the Idiocracy but like Lex I am not at all sure the general intelligence level of the voters as a whole will prevail over an environment of outright lies and fearmongering that the Idiocracy has relied upon from the start as a kind of shadow platform in place of real policies offered for the benefit of the general population. But then the Republican (Wrong) Party has adopted that strategy for some time now. Still, I don't fear for the outcome of the November elections. I really think nature can only be out of balance for only so long before some equilibrium intervenes.

They came for the Jews and I did not speak because I am not a Jew, then they came for the Christians and I did not speak because I am not a Christian, and then they came for me and there was no one left to speak...

I am totally outraged at the total apathy we have here in NYC (and perhaps in the US?). When an INNOCENT man is murdered by the police, people don’t care, the media is spun…..”the men were exiting a sleazy club frequented by prostitutes and drug users” or in the case of Diallo “ he was an illegal immigrant” . There is also the issue that these people are black and so more ‘disposable’ in our society or these people are lower working class, also more disposable. But this is not a race or a class issue these people are human’s and let’s not forget INNOCENT. The fact that there is NO accountability in this police state is outrageous!!
I was in Kingston, Jamaica the other wk… a place that America fears as an outlaw town. I place a adore as to me it’s un-spun with media leverage. An innocent bystander was killed by police and the whole community had come together and blockaded the main road, not allowing any commercial vehicles going in or out of New Kingston. Much to the chagrin of my mates in law enforcement I thought this was fantastic. A whole community who CARED and INSISTED on accountability! The police commissioner – a white Brit – came on the news and gave out his cell number (his real number) and went to the area. The cop is now on trial. I do believe with public pressure even the cop’s have to be accountable. I think the way everything is spin doctored slants public opinion in all manner of cases. Whether it to be race or homosexuality or the general xenophobia that’s pushed here against any ‘brown’ country or their religion. I don’t think any of us in America know MUCH truth at all – it’s all ‘wag the dog’ and we must be careful not to make opinions before we truly read as much GLOBAL reporting as possible.
I am just sad that EVERYONE of US is not outraged by this senseless murder. It shouldn’t just be Jackson and Sharpton out there it should be Clinton and all of us! Shame on us all!

The Idiocracy has really pummeled the general public's sense of being able to count or make a difference in these situations. It doesn't help that we had years and years of the Rudiani regime that offed innocent citizens nearly on a monthly basis with the ghastly Rudiani stonewalling on every occasion and only going to make visits to show sympathy for his gang in blue. The current police commissioner's only media quote, "This would be a tragedy for any family." -an utter display of callousness and rabid false sympathy is for all practical purposes the attitude of a fascist out and out. Both the police officials and Rudiani are probably furious over Puff Puff Bloomberg's limp shows of sympathetic concern and elbow rubbing on camera with the Rev. Al who is the only one left saying something to the point, "We're going shopping for justice." This will become another clean up case for the NYPD and it will go on for years in the courts. How many more will be ventillated by hollow point plus P's from police Glocks before the verdict is in? And the mainstream media, it doesn't even have the right officially sanctioned vocabulary to even begin to cope with this reality.

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I think at this stage Amnesty International need to look at the US. But then again i still believe that the US goverment are just as guilty of war crimes as Sadaam.