George Bush and the return of Little Black Sambo

President Bush brought together former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton on Monday to launch an appeal for Americans to make a donation to help victims of the South Asia quake and tsunamis.

George Bush and the return of Little Black Sambo
By Jane Stillwater http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com

Remember Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney -- and the Civil Rights Summer of 1964? How brave we all were back then as we worked hand in hand for a new world of hope and justice and harmony where "colored people" would be allowed to vote.

It's 40 years later and "colored people" are still being systematically deprived of their right to vote -- only this time on such a grand scale that it would cause even Martin Luther King's jaw to drop.

I marched in Montgomery.

I was at Malcolm X's funeral.

I taught in freedom schools, I picketed, I marched. And for every white person like me out on the line, there were at least five "Negroes" risking their lives to have the right to vote.

Now, 40 years later, George Bush is doing every single thing he can think of to resurrect Jim Crow, Stephen Fetchet and Little Black Sambo.

In predominantly African-American precincts in Florida and Ohio in November 2004, absentee ballots were lost, people were intimidated, voting machines were not provided, legitimate voters were "purged" from voting lists, people were instructed to vote on the wrong day, provisional ballots were "lost," votes disappeared and even dead people were allowed to vote as long as they voted for George W. Bush.

I don't know how African-Americans feel about being placed once again at the back of the bus but I know how I feel. I am totally pissed off!

In 1964, civil rights worker James Cheney was lynched because he tried to help secure Black people's right to vote. His battered body was found at the bottom of a river in Mississippi in the summer of 1964.

James Cheney died in order to protect EVERY American's right to vote.

Now there is a new Cheney in town -- a ruthless man who wants to turn back the clock to the bad old days of bigotry, racism and Jim Crow. Dick Cheney should be ashamed for trying to steal the souls of Black folk.

"I have a dream where a man will be judged by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin," said Martin Luther King. And to the bigoted hateful corrupt men in the White House today who are once again stealing the African-American vote, I have this to say: We stopped this kind of criminal behavior once and we'll stop it again.

"We SHALL overcome."

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On June 21, 1964, civil rights workers James Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were abducted and slain by Klansmen in Philadelphia, Miss. The men were volunteers for "Freedom Summer," a campaign to register African Americans to vote, and each possessed a long-standing passion for racial equality. http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_tol.jsp?id=1124

From Zogby: Pattern of Republican Intentionality Casts New Doubt on Bush Ohio Win. Jesse Jackson demands Ohio presidential recount, blasts GOP election officials and says Kerry supports the process. http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=10485

From Vee Brown: Greg Palast on the 'Apartheid Ballot Counting System in America' http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=10074&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported

Contest the vote at http://www.contestthevote.org/

From Granny Bee: What if your bank told you they have some good news for you? That they’re going to save themselves some money by not giving you a receipt on your ATM withdrawals any more. And they’re going to save even more money by reporting to you monthly only the balance in your account, not the individual transactions that show how they reached that balance? Would you trust them? Or would you run lickety-split to another bank? But that’s exactly what the companies who make voting machines are telling us. http://makethemaccountable.com/caro/Comment_040229_VotingMachineFraud.htm

From me: It took Bush FOUR DAYS to even comment on the tsunami disaster, the worst natural disaster in history. Is Bush ignoring this because it happened to Asians? AND Bush promised $15 billion in relief to Africa for the AIDS tragedy. How much of that has been delivered? Zero, zip, nada. Meanwhile 2,000 people A WEEK die of AIDS in Zimbabwe alone, most of them women and children. Is Bush ignoring this because it happened to Africans? 35 million Americans live below the poverty line, most of them children. Is Bush ignoring this because it happened to children? If you aren't a millionaire, Bush doesn't care about you. Get over it.

From Global Black News: Emergency Leadership Summit Creates Action AgendaTo Deal with New York City's 50% Black Male Unemployment "If you are not shocked by that number then you are brain dead. There is no constituency - Black, white, male, female - that should be unemployed at the rate of 50% except for retirees."
http://www.globalblacknews.com/Lamb56.html

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From John regarding US unemployment rates [One out of ten American workers are unemployed? Yowie!]: The following statistics are from the article written by Ed Kent.
US Officially unemployed: 8.0 million (5.4%)
US Hidden unemployed: 9.6 million
US Total unemployed: 17.6 million (11.5%)

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From Sula and the We Do Not Concede Coalition: Tens of thousands of voting irregularities have been documented in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico, Indiana, North Carolina, Washington, Nevada, Texas and many others states! Is THIS What A Democracy Looks Like? Is THIS How a Democracy Works? View/Download Video Footage of Voter Suppression in Ohio Election 2004 http://www.donotconcede.com/

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Sign the protest petition: http://www.rainbowpush.org/petition/
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From Almira: 20 voting facts you should know: 1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's
vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm

http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml

13. Jeff Dean, Diebold's Senior Vice-President and senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

14. Diebold Senior Vice-President Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie here
<http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov>.)
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOu
t.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=
950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOu
t.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,1080
1,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/

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Speaking of going South!: Today, Juli sent me a Happy New Year e-card and it made me realize how there are so many people out there on the internet who are wonderful and nice and we've never met and probably will never meet -- unless some effort is made. Hummm. Perhaps we SHOULD make an effort to meet in New Orleans on April 1st. And invite EVERYBODY we've met from the internet. Even Dubya! We could visit the Flaming Liberal and the Canal Street Madam. We could take over a Motel Six in the French Quarter. Bring wheelchairs! Bring grandchildren! What do you think?

Jane, I don't have anything else planned for the day and the wife loves Cafe Dumond and Beignets. Then on to Ralph and Kakoo's for some great seafood. Then Pat O'Brien's for some Hurricanes and great entertainment. Forget Motels in New Orleans, we'll stay just across Lake Ponchatrain in Slidell, LA on I-10. More affordable and less congested. Joe T.

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"Imagine a world were EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World Peace in one Generation!"

jpstillwater@yahoo.com