Find them....fast, in the:
<center><img src="http://webpages.charter.net/micah/bellsouth.jpg"></center>

Right thinking will be rewarded
Wrong thinking will be punished

The evidence out of Ohio clearly shows intent, but my energy is limited to my corner of the country. County by county Washington is converting to all ballots by mail. It eliminates the polling centers and the NAVA requirement for voting machines. Our signatures are on file and matched. The door is closed to voting on behalf of our dearly departed. We gleefully pick off those darling little chads of fame and return our ballots, double enveloped, at our leisure. Shut ins and the elderly are not disenfranchised. Our Secretary of State, although a partison position, does not attract the ideologue, evidenced by our recent election for governor.

We aren't all the way there yet, but we're working on it. I can squawk as loud as the next person, but what precisely would you have me do that would correct the problems in Ohio or any other state?

I just voted in Ohio a few days ago and there is a paper receipt that gets printed and stored inside the machine. The voter never touches the paper receipt and can't add their own into the machine. But, I'm not sure what happens to the discarded ones. And coould real votes be discarded?

Second, is it possible to hack into the machine somehow and change the numbers, either at the machine by a person, or in the software by saying for ever 2 votes the person I don't want to win gets, it will automatically add 1 vote to the 'good' guy total in addition to all of the other votes they get.

I like electronic voting, but I agree that there needs to be oversight by anybody in the public into every aspect of it.

Um the Germans didnt "hold" the Russians off at Stalingrad. The situation was that Germany attacked and Russia simply could not:
1. Get reinforcements, food, ect into the city.
2. Do much about bombs getting dropped on their city, (not much ANYONE can do about shots being fired miles away and blowing holes through walls.)

Think on this, do you think the Russians in that situation, if even near a quarter more russian had been train soldeirs the outcome would of been largly different? No, probably not, the city didnt have supply's or food for those kinds of troups, I'd wager that any random soldeir would have any problems killing a half starved individual whether it be soldeir, or civilian.
The issue isnt truly a TRAINED rebel army. Think of the civil war, it WAS cusins and brothers fighting against each other and they devided it up by lines. Something sure as hell happened there. A person will fight if their belief's in how their way of life should be lived is threatened by anouther living thing. No the goverment would not out right win a fight, because undoubtably people would switch sides in what they believe in. People dont fight for laws, they fight for their way of life and how they want their lives and those around them to be.

Think of it this way, what would be the reason to raise a rebellion if you felt you where totaly unthreatened by events surrounding your civil rights and the rights of your future offspring? If you thought that your children or the children of the nation where going the be used by people thousands of miles away who dont have the good of THE PEOPLE, not the goverment in mind, then wouldnt you fight? A single party system that control's everything, even OTHER PARTY's through espinage to get information that they have to hide simply because it is not their right to obtain it. That sounds kind of like a communistic goverment to me, although I was say it sounds more like a tyrany that a commi goverment, (I veiw tyrany as worse) Dont you?

I will stop here and read the rest of the posts now, your comment just caught my eye..

Historically speaking, what you're saying here is innaccurate. The Germans held over 90% of the city for over 6 months and at one point controlled all of it except for a 1000m ribbon 100m deep along the river. By all accounts, the Russian army was undertrained and underarmed. If you've ever seen "Enemies at the Gates", the opening scene is actually an accurate depiction of how the 62nd Army was inserted into the city. The 62nd was made up mostly of conscripts who had a few weeks of training and virtually no weapons when they went into the field. They were instructed to pick up weapons from fallen comrades.

At best estimate, 500,000 Germans took and held the city from 1,750,000 Soviet troops, which is the point of my comment. The reason that the Soviets managed to win at Stalingrad was not through the tactical genius of their commanders (although there was some of that) but because they stalled the Germans long enough that they could employ the method that won the Russian Empire so many battles - sheer weight of numbers. A well armed, well trained, battle hardened force held off a poorly organized, poorly trained, poorly armed force over 3 times the size of the former for well over 6 months. With proper supplies, the Germans might have very well continued their advance.

By the way, the Soviets had no problem getting reinforcements or supplies into or out of the city in summer or winter since they had boats for the water and could drive over the ice. There were weeks where this was not possible and that's when supplies ran low.

As for the rest, I don't believe in suicide, which is what an attack against the American government would be. There are other ways to change the system, and we've all seen that non-violent aggitation can cause serious changes in this country. The problem is that people who feel like you are in the minority and have no advocates in positions of power, governmental or otherwise.

A peaceful breakup is certainly preferable to a violent one, and I don't think we are anywhere close to this now. It will take some sort of economic collapse before people get fed up enough to really want to change things.

As far as feeling like we have no advocates in power, I have felt for some time now that the ruling Democrat/Republican party is primarily interested in enriching themselves at our expense. I don't think there is anything evil or sinister in this, it is just human nature and governments just get bloated and corrupt over time. That is why they all fail eventually try as we might to hold them together.

Oh well now my threads are being deleted out right.

Think when the last mod of this board asked me to join him on another politics board I should have taken him up on it. Guess I still will.

Whoever deleted that post you know what I said is true and now you want to hide it :|

Is the description and documentation in the lower part of this post:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...53#post2062253

...enough, YET, to presuade anyone to consider participation in relentless peaceful protests and organized acts of civil disobedience....or if not now....
WHEN?

For the record, Guerilla tactics employed against the military is the employment of guerilla warfare; a completely different beast then "terrorism".

The terms are not mutually exclusive. Terrorism, at least in it's current meaning, is a group of people who use unorthodox means to defeat a superior force, often using the ability to instill fear instead actual force. Guerilla warfare is irregular warfare. By my understanding, terrorism is a kind of guerilla warfare. Guerilla warfare is the general term, and terrorism is a kind of guerilla tactics.

Terrorists use guerila tactics. Terrorism is the attempt of one group to coerce/intimidate/instill fear on a civilian group to achieve a goal. Just because the founding fathers or minute men got wise and discovered there was a better chance at survival if you didn't stand in lines to get mowed down by a superior british force, didn't make them terrorists. You are right though, they are not mutually exclusive.

terrorism is the use of violence against non-combat personnel/non-military personnel to achieve a political end.

....then the al Qaeda aren't terrorists? Last time I checked, the Pentagon is a military target full of military personel. The al Qaeda was also responsible for the 2000 bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole which killed 17 sailors.

I think if the American settlers had traveled back over to Britian and blew up some pubs and demanded that they allow the colonies to be independant, that would have been terrorism.

Would al Qaeda attack the US again if we pull out all of our troops from the Middle East? Most people aren't willing to take that chance. If they would have only hit the pentagon, and used empty 747s, that would have been different, but still it is a grey area.

and how many of the WTC victims (dead or alive) were military personnel? How many of those beheaded on video were US military?

Don't try to vindicate AQ because a few targets were military, they are a terrorist organization. Their intent is to fear the populace in to electing a government that has weak foreign policy.

Or to elect a criminal, untruthful one.....

Does "collateral damage" count?

By those standards, the United States becomes one of the largest terrorist organizations of the world.

So I'd be careful with that one. :p

host, imo, it wouldn't have mattered whether bush was re-elected or kerry was elected. an attack of such magnitude requires planning, many years of it. cheney and rove were no more correct in their statements than i would be if I said that they really didn't send timothy mcveigh to prison. They used those remarks to embellish the possibility of terrorist attacks and alot of people bought it. Blame the press for reporting it.

yeah, i'd be careful also. if 'collateral damage' means one or two people, then i'd say it's not terrorism. If dozens are collaterally killed, you have to look at any response that might be forthcoming from any organization that MAY claim responsibility.

I know you are trying to refer to the US attacks and their collateral damage in the past. My opinion, the people that made those decisions to conduct such actions should be held accountable.

War is War, and sometimes, SOMETIMES, innocent deaths cannot be avoided. A tragedy for sure. It all comes down to weighing whether the death of those innocents, while achieving your target kill, will save lives in the future. example, would you have nuked berlin to kill hitler and his leadership if it would have meant saving even half of the jews killed during the holocaust?

Yeah, that's my point. It seems to me the whole point of the "shock and awe" strategy was to terrorise anybody in iraq who might have a mind to resist u.s. forces.

flstfAn economic collapse may be sooner than any of us can comprehend. This is not from the msp, but economists throughout the world are raising alarms. Give it read just the same.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article13028.htm

What if they just roamed the south and burned down British loyalists' (Tories) homes and inflicted violence on their families?

What if state sponsored pirates marauded civilian merchant vessels and disrupted the British shipping routes?


Would either of those scenarios fit your notions of what constitutes terrorism or "the use of violence against non-combat personnel/non-military personnel to achieve a political end"?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1637454.stm
Vindicate?! Hahahahaha!!! Yea, I love the al Qaeda!!! I'd like to see more of them! Osama Bin Laden is coming to my birthday!!

/end sarcasm

The al Qaeda is an organization that sees it as perfectly alright to kill anyone and destroy anything in order to push their adgenda. They are horrible, evil, and self destructive. They attack military and civilian targets alike. I'm not really sure what their intent is. I used to think it was purely anti Western BS, but I doubt it's that simple.

Oh! Ok. That's funny, I was thinking making a "shock & awe" joke. Maybe not that funny. I just remembered, don't forget all the state-sponsored terrorism the U.S. sanctioned against other countries; CIA coups & Northwoods documents might make some good examples?

Regarding all that speculation about another economic collapse, you should read or listen to a series called "the wizards of money", you might find it interesting.

What are we discussing here anyways? If it's okay to use terrorist tactics against an oppressive non-democratic government? It's probably not a smart idea.

Here's a question though, if you targeted a business executive who was the head of a major conglomorate that made a non-democratic and corporatist state possible, and he was completely aware of all the terrible things he was helping make possible, would that count as terrorism?

I guess what I'm asking is what makes a target legitimate?

How did Ohio go red in '04 without the help of diebold?!?!
http://ohiodems.org/index.php?displa...ails&id=191201

The question that comes to my mind, after reading this NPR piece, is, are we past the stage of "nipping" the assault on our constitution, "in the bud"?

If somewhere near 60 percent of our "elected representatives", and certainly, the executive branch, clearly choose to represent the "government"...our government.....instead of us, "the people", as the following piece describes, what else has to happen before there is a grassroots response to the suspension of any of our constitutional guarantees to a fair and speedy independent review by a court of competent jurisdiction, of any criminal charges brought against any individual by the government?

Doesn't this "legislation" make it more difficult for "the people" to intimidate the government into protecting our rights..... instead of taking them away, when it is indicated that actions by the government, make it neccessary to do so, as it seems, right now?

The irony seems to be that the alleged "protections" advertised as being neccessary to "fight terror", have the direct effect of making the government less accountable to "the people", and better able to indefinitely detain those designated as the "leaders" of any attempted organization of grassroots opposition to this new law, and to the trend toward loss of representation in the legislature and the former protections against unreasonable arrest, detention, and a guaranteed fair and speedy trial, in a civilian court, judged by a jury of our peers.

So.....since it is past the time "to nip it".....is it time now, to discuss when it is appropriate to intercede, via a grassroots opposition movement, and if not now.......when? Is it still "too early", is it "too late", is it simply to be dismissed as "out of the question", or is it past the time....but it isn't even fucking worth it, anymore, or anyway?

Was the plurality of the vote by our representatives, against our "rights", large enough to convince anyone that the situation described below, cannot be corrected via the ballot box?

<h3>By passing this "Detainee Bill", into law, hasn't the POTUS and 60+ percent of our representatives, staged their boldest coup yet, against "the people"? Aren't they....with each incremental weakening of our individual rights and thus, the strengthening of the government's, testing our response....and....it follows....emboldening them to take the next "nip", and the "next".....until.....what ????</h3>

you are currently looking at the result of 75 years of zealously pursued statism. The boundaries of freedom and liberty have been blurred by various groups who don't trust the people with their own freedom, who don't trust the people with having the power of the nation, groups who firmly believe that the central government IS, SHOULD BE, AND ALWAYS WILL BE the only ones capable of providing the security and safety that they so desire. Any 'grassroots' group that stands up for freedom and liberty is going to be shouted down as a terrorist support because they won't allow the central government to protect them. God forbid that someone should even intimate that violent resistance against their statist agenda is not only possible, but certain, for then they will be depicted as completely unstable and therefore should be locked away for the good of society as well as their own good.

The ONLY way to get back control of the governments is probably going to be another civil war.

I'm starting to wonder how far an administration can go before the people will be driven to act. Its a case of the frog in a gradual boil. Civil war is a possibility. Hopefully your wrong.

This society has been turned into one in which the people no longer have power. And those who occupy this society are not free of this guilt. We have the ability to chose our leaders, a priviledge which many chose to ignor. And even if they chose not to vote, they must be willing to help preserve their government. When our president says things like this...
...and this...
...and hardly anyone cares, you're left with a fairly good understanding of how sick this country has become. Vigilence has lost all meaning.

But something needs to happen. If the government is able to seize control of our lives, it is only because we let them.

:lol:

I'd guess that more people will watch tonights football game then watched the last presidential election debates.

There will be a small revolution in November, and a big one 2 years in November, nothing in that has changed. Anyone arguing we need an armed overthrow of the government at this point is a nutjob, besides, which side has the guns? :suave:

He's got a point there.

They just had a government get overthrown in Thailand. It is the only way it could happen here as well. The military has more power than the politicians. The military could 'kick out' the current government and hold emergency elections in a few months. I guess that is why they ask everyone working for the government if they have ever tried to overthrow or plan to overthrow the government.

Massive amounts of people could be a problem for the military to keep in line (we are talking 100+ million here). But, as our country get divided more and more, and liberals move to the same cities and states, conservatives to their states, conflict between states doesn't seem quite so far-fetched.

I agree with Ustwo on this one....."Anyone arguing we need an armed overthrow of the government at this point is a nutjob"

There is a reason why we have the longest operating democracy in the world.

While its far from perfect and (here is where UStwo and I probably disagree), particularly so under the current administration which operates by secrecy and the unilateral determination of the lines of Constitutional authority and responsiblity and other means of manipulating the law to serve a political ideology....citizens still have the means to redress their grievances through the ballot and beyond, albeit not always successfully.

Talk of armed insurrection is a folly.

Technological superiority doesn't amount to jack squat. Also, what soldier in their right mind would go into an American city or town to kill American citizens? I think a lot of people are underestimating the hypothetical insurgent fighting force of Americans.

Kent State?

Well, it all depends on how you frame the conflict. History is littered with instances of armies attacking the people they're supposed to protect. Anyone inciting armed overthrow of the government could easily be shellacked into terrorist status. The government would just have to come up with a sufficient pr campaign to dehumanize the insurgents.

It would be interesting to look up the newspapers in both the North and the South right before the Civil War broke out and see if there was any propaganda. Was it the politicians that led the people in the south to be against the north, or did all of the northerners already think of southerners as slave-owning lower class people, and southerners think of the north as controlling dictators?

It would get really ugly if the US military broke in two and fought itself now.

A very legitimate point, but it's one thing to claim that a man born in Saudi Arabia, raised in a society that unfortunatally promotes hatred of all things western, who lost his aunt to an attack by US forces, who has links to the al Qaeda is a terrorist. It's another thing to claim a man born in Austin Texas, father of two, who is a manager at Orchard Supply and coaches a t-ball team is a terrorist.

Consider if someone suggested I was a terrorist. I was born in San Jose, son of a Lutheran pastor, married and one daughter, good job, lots of friends, donates to charity, feeds the homeless, TONS of friends in the military, belongs to a military family, a history of seeking peaceful solutions, a member of the peace movement, posts waaay to much on TFP: is this the profile of the standard terrorist? Doubtful. Even with my unorthodox beliefs about 9/11 and my strong liberal leanings, I'm still not going to be on a terrorist watch list. Despite all this, I could be a terrorist. Who knows? The thing is, the hypothetical American terrorist who would wish to overthrow the government would need the military. They would need the support of the people and the military in order to bring about a change with the least bloodshed possible. What does this mean? Bombing empty government buildings. Public defacing of prominant party figures (telling the truth about the bad leaders). Blowing up banks afterhours. Blowing up symbols of tyranny. Destroying the tools of those who would destroy peace.

I know what you're saying will, but when it comes to the characterization of the enemy in war, reality has little relevence. The definition of terrorist is a pliable one. All it really means is that the powers that be find you to be very threatening, either that or they want an excuse to lock you up.

there are all kinds of scenarios that would render the firepower of a vertically organized military more or less useless.
faced with the outcomes of a legitimation crisis of any real proportions, statements like "we have guns" would be about as functional as the wolfowitz "plan" was for iraq.
such statements reflect little beyond simple-minded arrogance.

the question is not whether and insurrection could happen, but rather which one--which ideology would be used, what the goals would be, how these goals would be reflected in organizational structure, etc.

mass actions do not just happen.
they are not purely spontaneous.
historically, mass actions have articulated themselves around available discourses, have taken them over and reworked them practically as they fashion themselves as movements.

it is not obvious that the logic of civil war leading to revolution is rational.
the history of the revolutionary tradition has shown this pretty clearly: if you think about revolution as a military operation, you tend to get military organizations runing the show. when they get power, they impose their internal logic on the situation they come to control. so the notion of a revolution organized around small armed groups is problematic in itself--but the trick is the politics of that organization...
a far more effective strategy would involve a variant of the general strike.
a very large, entirely peaceful withdrawl of consent could bring any government to its knees.
no amount of weaponry would make any difference: who would you shoot at? everyone? and what makes anyone think that the military would be outside of such an action?
any action on the part of the state is such a context would simply speed its implosion.

the only real problem from my viewpoint is that there is no revolutionary politics that offers anything like a coherent countermodel to the existing order. i would entirely oppose any rightwing nationalist action. further, i do not think such an action would be able to gather any meaningful support--the bush squad has already stolen the thunder of such politics, and a rightwing movement would offer nothing but more of the same.

in the end, the right faces the problems that the left has been dealing with for quite a long time--the hollowing out of its rhetoric, the collapse of any meaningful purchase of the terminology it relies upon.

Unless this entire problem is a ruse by Bush to elaborate on how weak our constitution is.

our constitution started weakening after the civil war, it increased exponentially with FDR and the new deal dems.

Be careful drawing lines in the sand in public. I'd hate to lose someone vital to the survival of this country to imprisonment before everything starts.

:hmm:

Ironic.

I am on the verge of starting a thread tilted, "Is this enough"? We all have our own individual tolerance, a line that cannot be crossed before we'll do.....what?

How many have decided that they will simply look "the other way", no matter what former protections and rights, "under the law", are simply appropriated by the "unitary exectuive"?
What if there was a knock on your door, and some authority announced that they were authorized to seize your remote channel changer?

There are so many different lines for people of when they will say 'enough'. It usually has to do with the inability to understand what freedom and liberty was supposed to be and replace that with the comfort of feeling safe with protection provided by the government. I suspect some people would be perfectly happy with martial law, troops in the street, and having to stay in your home except for work as long as they could feel 'safe'. On the other end, I know people that think we're no longer 'free' since a farmer can't grow wheat for his own consumption if congress thinks he shouldn't. Then there are the millions of different lines in between.

The ABA recently released a report on Bush's "signing statements":
"I find these signing statements are to Bush and Cheney's presidency what steroids were to Arnold Schwarzenegger's body building." (link)

A few examples from among the more than 800 signing statements:

March 9, 2006:
Law: Justice Department officials must give reports to Congress by certain daes on how the FBI is using the USA Patriot Act to search homes and secretly seize papers.
Bush's signing statement: The president can order Justice Department officials to withhold any information from Congress if he decides it could impair national security or executive branch operations.

Dec. 30, 2005:
Law: When requested, scientific information "prepared by government researchers and scientists shall be transmitted [to Congress] uncensored and without delay."
Bush's signing statement: The president can tell researchers to withhold any information from Congress if he decides its disclosure could impair foreign relations, national security, or the workings of the executive branch.

Aug. 8, 2005:
Law: The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its contractors may not fire or otherwise punish an employee whistle-blower who tells Congress about possible wrongdoing.
Bush's signing statement: The president or his appointees will determine whether employees of the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can give information to Congress.

Oct. 29, 200r:
Law: Defense Department personnel are prohibited from interfering with the ability of military lawyers to give independent legal advice to their commanders.
Bush's signing statement: All military attorneys are bound to follow legal conclusions reached by the administration's lawyers in the Justice Department and the Pentagon when giving advice to their commanders.

What will it take for the American people to see how this president treats the Constitution in all manners that affect our lives?

The $64,000 question. I would add that it's not just the president. It's congress and the judiciary as well.

I agree that the Congress and judiciary have abrogated their responsibilities to protect the Constitutionally-defined separation of powers among the three branches of government.

That is one reason I have always believed that the most safeguards and best oversight of the checks and balances are provided when we have a majority Congress of the opposing party to the president.

So vote Dem next month. Its less painful and dangerous than armed insurrection :)

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

This would make sense, if one were to believe that democrats protected the constitution and bill of rights. This is far from true though.

The ONLY thing that gets accomplished by having opposing parties in the white house and congress is that they generally can do no more damage than is already done.

Saved Clintons presidency and made him somewhat popular being able to do nothing for 6 years. It was his first 2 that got him in trouble.

...and if that doesn't work? What if polling....either just before the election, or exit polling results....in multiple districts, especially in places like Ohio, Florida, and in Washington, clearly do not match the reported vote results?

Ironically, dc_dux, how does either branch of congress, do anything to check what amounts to a slow rolling coup.....a death to the constitution by a thousand cuts. The most we can hope for, even if political control of the house were to change, is that an impeachment resolution is drafted, and the executive branch ignores it, or defies it, citing national security issues to justify it's resistance.

This would "speed up" greater recognition of where I, and the ABA think that we already are.....we have arrived, a while ago, at a situation where the POTUS has declared himself to be the law.....to supercede the law, because we are at his phony, perpetual "state of war".

The vote, two weeks ago, on the "detainee" bill, indicates that, even if one or both branches of congress changed hands, there is no political will to check the takeover of the government....the subversion of the constitution, by the executive branch.

There are always early players. In a situation like the one we are in, if they emerge to openly resist at all, even if their protests seem aggressive, but non-violent to most of us, they will be made harsh examples of, to discourage their inspiring any momentum towards insurrection.

My point is, I see no potential for intimidation, "by the people", to discourage the "taking" of their power and rights, by the executive. I certainly don't see any coming from congress. Cindy Sheehan has been the closest we've witnessed to anything like that, even having the potential of happening.

A rational response would be the organizing of general strikes..... or even declaration of a non-participation day, as Mexican immigrants impressively organized, last spring. They staged a protest that was not even rooted in the legitimacy of affronts by our government, to the law, and they did it with more indignation, than the ways we have reacted to deliberate affronts to the law.

I am increasingly pessimistic that anything can stop the completion of this coup. We read about it's progression, make a li'l noise, and stay on our couches......some of us who even make any noise at all, or briiefly stare away from the "game" on the TV.

No one wants to be first, but if the founding fathers, left it to the "other guy", to stick his neck out, we would have no constitution to lose, or <b>to risk losing everything, to preserve.</b>