Time for a VLWC.

[Octafish]

The bedwetting Bush bastards did what they always do. They cheated.

Unlike 2000, where the Supreme Court five left a 5-4 record, this year there is, literally, no paper trail and, hence, no record of their crime.

Consider Florida AND Ohio were blue the day before the election. The day of the election, the exit polls said they were going solidly for Kerry. Yet voila! The numbers go to Bush. Of couse, there's no paper trail for a big chunk of the corporate-tabulated, GOP-verified numbers. Don't say we weren't warned:

Diebold, Electronic Voting and the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

And most people don't even know -- or seem to even care -- about it, thanks in large part to Corporate McPravda and the Vast Right Wing echo chamber. For details, read Robert Parry's excellent analysis:

Top Priority: Media Infrastructure

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110404.html

So, what can we do about it? How can we get these lard-assed corporations to put the national interests ahead of their bottom line?

I say, we can't (as long as the FCC is controlled by the Fourth Reich). So, to get through the info-clutter, we need to build our own Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Biggest and Best Echo Chamber yet -- one powered by People and Truth!

DU's a great place to start. Who agrees? Any ideas?

[Sandpiper]

1. George Soros and Warren Buffet can bankroll it

Why let Richard Mellon Scaife have all the fun?

[Octafish]

3. Two men who put the good of the nation ahead of their pocketbooks.

Scaife, OTOH, is a character assassin, at best. Remember what happened to Steve Kangas?

http://www.jimpivonka.com/pages/RichMScaife-SteveKangas.html

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/tenets.htm

What scared Scaife, unlike Soros and Buffet:

The Origins of the Overclass

By Steve Kangas

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

Another early elite was Allen Dulles, who served as Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels. He was also a board member of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, with offices in Wall Street, London, Zurich and Hamburg. His financial interests across the world would become a conflict of interest when he became head of the CIA. Like Donavan, he would recruit exclusively from society’s elite.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html

[PROGRESSIVE1]

5. Soros and Buffett are moderates.

They see the light and that is why they are so strongly opposed to the right wing in this Country.

[Octafish]

11. Amazing how intelligent people understand what democracy is all about.

Greedy folks only see democracy as in "What's in it for me?"

Case in point: Taxes. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

Gee. Contrast that with today's typical puke propaganda. Remember Poppy's inaugural address in 1989? He said "We have more will than wallet." Bush Sr truly earned his epithet, "a small toothache of a man."

[zacho]

2. Fraud

You could get the Congressional Black Causus and maybe Barack Obama (or Russ Feingold) to object to the election results when it goes through approval by Congress.

[Octafish]

4. Fraud!

It's a most powerful word. The upcoming session would be the best time to put it to the American people. About the only time our side gets a chance to get its message out unfiltered is when the cameras are on live.

Perhaps someone will be brave and stand up demanding the votes be verified and counted. If the DEMs do, they'll have at least me stand up with them. I bet you'd be there, too.

Hey, zacho! A hearty welcome to DU!

[Gold Metal Flake]

6. Call it a VLWPAC and we're cool.

Truthseekers do not conspire.

[Octafish]

10. It's not intended in the criminal sense.

It's meant in the terms of the word's origin:

Conspire comes from the middle English "conspiren," from Old French, from Latin con-spi-rare : com-, com- + spirare, to breathe together.

We all need to breathe together. Only by joining together and holding the same goal -- the ouster of the criminal cabal -- can we accomplish our goal. Yes, the information media are important. The most important battle is to win sway in the minds of the nation's individuals. That will trump Murdoch, Moon and th rest of the VRWC turdballs and toadies.

[msmcghee]

7. They only needed their VRWC until 9/11 . .

After that, all they had to do was raise the terror level every few weeks . . and use the POTUS megaphone. They would have got close enough anyway. That and voter intimidation did the trick.

[Octafish]

13. Remember how cowed the press was just before the war?

There was that scary press conference where what appeared to be a strung-out and sedated Smirko called on reporters and robotically read from a script answers to their obviously canned questions. The unelected moron even called one and said, "Oops. I wasn't supposed to call you out of turn. Heh heh heh." All the presstitutes could do was utter an embarrassed chuckle and go on pretending.

The BFEE cowers and intimidates and kills those who oppose them. I don't think I'm being paranoid when I say we haven't had a free press since 22 November 1963.

Scripted Press Conferences and the Lapdog Media

BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

As we have mentioned over the last two years, the Republican Party is so brazen in its hypocrisy, it will sometimes just openly brag about its duplicitousness.

It happened when Andrew Card said in September of 2002 that the Bush Cartel waited until the fall to begin the drumbeats of war against Iraq, because, he argued, the summer is not a good time to roll out a "new product."

It happened again on Thursday night when Bush openly acknowledged that the news conference was scripted. Bush appeared to be referring to a list of reporters prepared for him that he was reading from, which excluded Helen Thomas, of course. As he read down the list, he told a reporter, in essence, to wait to ask his question because the reporter was further down on the list.

You can hear (557kb wav) the "script" comment yourself in an audio file created by a BuzzFlash Reader, who notes, "The relevant excerpt from CNN's transcript is included below -- notice the 'scripted' comment is conveniently scrubbed out."

BUSH: ...The risk of doing nothing, the risk of hoping that Saddam Hussein changes his mind and becomes a gentle soul, the risk that somehow inaction will make the world safer, is a risk I'm not willing to take for the American people.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, how would you answer your critics who say that they think is somehow personal? As Senator Kennedy put it tonight, he said your fixation with Saddam Hussein is making the world a more dangerous place.

(See: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/06/
bush.speech.transcript/index.html)

CONTINUED...

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/03/07_scripted.html

[PATRICK]

8. I agree. come here for the news.

The few with the habit of craving still there can drag an occasional report from the soviet style morass where we can isolate and dissect the poison to remember what is happening to people who depend on this for
their information.

I mean FAIR and others are obsessed about reporting about incompetent propagandists. They are trying to rescue a dog gone rabid. A miserable and necessary task to be sure, but real news comes outside the US and from direct sources. Think one step in front of C-Span. Likewise the sorry drama of the shadow democrats and the power elite that used to disguise itself as the GOP is not the direct place to look for hope change or a real clue. Has to be done but that isn't an unpoisoned well either.

I say developing our projects. Getting things done. Getting informed and forcing change and as a therapy group for sanity and truth we had better act more than observe people not acting or coming at us on purpose or with blinders.

We will lose the Internet with the Right to Vote. Our window is now. Radio Free America. Internet Free America. Smash the machine. Gut the myth. The social contract is toilet paper. There are islands of minor justice in great abundance, freedoms and opportunities strewn through our luxuries and distractions. The seas are rising.

World War II, the Korean War, the Civil and Revolutionary War burned out in a few years. Vietnam dragged on terribly. Bush and gang have no end in sight yet and never has such a comfortable life lost so many avenues to seek justice. Martin Luther King had more hope than we can be justified in having regarding the government. Our public dying hasn't even commenced. Our protests look selfish and petty compared to the rest of the informed world. I look in the mirror. I see the sorrowful pictures posted. I look at one Iraqi child with his limbs blown off for the Chimpster.

"We haven't begun to fight" isn't a rallying cry. It's a communal admission of guilt. Our pretended heaven of benevolent capitalism is crashing around us. Even in the Civil War we were spared most of our civilian pursuits. For us older folk we know this has been maybe a hundred year war in essence. The Democrats have kept the Confederate style of clinging to illusions.

I apologize to the younger members here late to the peripatetic war, for the world we left them. Shame or blame is irrelevant. I'm just damned sorry. There is no fate or destiny but what we fashion that effects the humdrum spinning of atoms on this speck of dust. God spare our failings.

[Octafish]

14. What PATRICK said.

What makes me a Democrat is that I believe ALL people are created equal -- and that means each person holds the presence of God.

Proceeding from that basic assumption, it's easy for me to see and understand how today's Constitution of the United States specifies that each citizen -- no matter whether rich or poor, urban or rural, religious or agnostic, intelligent or uninformed -- is entitled to the full protection of the law. And, as a Democrat, I believe it is the government's responsibility to do what is best for ALL the people. And it is the People's responsibility to harness the power of government for the benefit of ALL the People.

Utilizing what Allen Dulles called the "Mighty Worlitzer", the pukes have done all they can to make that attitude passe. Grover Norquist even stated the "Greatest Generation" was a Democratic aberration that was dying at the rate of thousands a day and would soon be gone. Norquist and his fellow turds would be ashamed, if they only knew what that meant.

What do you say we build our own Mighty Worlitzer to combat the "Mighty Whorelitzer" that the VRWC pumps out 24/7? We can start out on the net, use the cell phones, fax machines, desktop printing presses and everything else we can get our mitts on -- incuding word-of-mouth messaging. Viral marketing was the in thing.

[SomthingsGotaGive]

27. well said

[Senior citizen]

9. DU is too strongly tied to the Democratic Party.

It is a wonderful place to read and post, but it cannot oppose the 2-party system.

We were lied to. Kerry promised to declare victory and demand recounts. Instead he conceded. Skinner say, "This sucks."

Yes, it does. It is exactly the same thing that happened in 2000.

In order to have a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy powered by people and truth, we need an echo chamber that can echo.

I posted a poll asking what Democrats should do, with 10 choices. One (probably a freeper) said we should support the war and oppose Nader. Some said we should oppose the war and forget Nader. But the most votes (6) went for: oppose the war and oppose the corrupt 2-party system. There are a lot of us here because we have no place else to go. What we need is a greenunderground or a karmapartyunderground, or a vastleftwingconspiracyunderground.

But no other site has such user-friendly software. Most places that let people post and have discussions are still in the dark ages.

We need people like skinner, earlg, and elad, who are not tied to either of the corporate parties.

We need somebody like Soros to bankroll them until they get up and running.

We need to be our own political power, because we're tired of being lied to. We're tired of politicians promising to fight for us and then backing down. We're tired of election fraud and compromise. We know that every minute we devote our energy to pro-war political parties, we have more blood on our hands.

I have neither the software nor the people skills to do what is needed. But it must be done.

[Abelman]

12. So...

we need to start controlling the Democratic Party somehow. But how do we do this?

[Senior citizen]

16. Easy. We just control all the big multinational corporations.

Then we can bankroll politicians who favor our corporate policies, and buy up the media to spin everything. Since they will have to work with or for us in order to survive, the Democrats will fall in line.

Old money controls both corporate parties. They won't even talk to us, except to take our money.

Face it, we didn't have the right parents. We didn't go to the right schools. We didn't belong to the right fraternities. We aren't invited to Trilateral Commission meetings. Every election the two corporate parties, which have already decided the outcome between them, solicit our time and money to make it appear that democracy still exists. Then they go back to business as usual.

We cannot make the Democratic Party oppose the Iraq war, because the Democratic Party is one of the two corporate parties that profits from the war. We cannot make the Democratic Party move towards the left, because, with some notable (and relatively powerless) exceptions, such as the Black Congressional Caucus, Bob Filner, etc., their bread is buttered on the right. Walter Karp, in "Indispensable Enemies," explained that the two corporate parties exist in order to control the political process and keep everyone else out of it. The 2-party system exists to keep power out of the hands of the people, and perhaps they're right. Power corrupts, so if we had power, perhaps we'd be just as corrupt as they are.

What a luxury it is to have nothing to lose, to be able to afford to be honest, to be able to care, to be able to afford a conscience. These are luxuries the powerful disdain. They know that they can kill us as easily as they kill innocent Iraqis--and they couldn't care less for our opinions. They know how to shape public opinion, and DU is a perfect example. I'm a perfect example. I really believed that a pro-war candidate would protect our voting rights. I believed it not just because he said so, but because all the nice people on DU were having the same hallucination. And it was a lot easier to join the mass hallucination than to be lonely, bitter, and angry.

The Democrats fooled me once in 2000. Shame on them.

They fooled me again in 2004. Shame on me.

And I have no doubt that I'll be fooled again. I'm easy. I'm a sucker. I'm just what they needed--another moran to fool.

[Octafish]

18. Not ALL Democrats are schmucks. Kerry is a good guy.

Robert Parry said there are two kinds of DEMs -- those who are accomodating and those who believe in accountability:

Kerry's Contra-Cocaine Chapter

By Robert Parry
October 29, 2004 (Originally published at Salon.com)

In December 1985, when Brian Barger and I wrote a groundbreaking story for the Associated Press about Nicaraguan Contra rebels smuggling cocaine into the United States, one U.S. senator put his political career on the line to follow up on our disturbing findings. His name was John Kerry.

Yet, over the past year, even as Kerry's heroism as a young Navy officer in Vietnam has become a point of controversy, this act of political courage by a freshman senator has gone virtually unmentioned, even though -- or perhaps because -- it marked Kerry's first challenge to the Bush family.

In early 1986, the 42-year-old Massachusetts Democrat stood almost alone in the U.S. Senate demanding answers about the emerging evidence that CIA-backed Contras were filling their coffers by collaborating with drug traffickers then flooding U.S. borders with cocaine from South America.

Kerry assigned members of his personal Senate staff to pursue the allegations. He also persuaded the Republican majority on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to request information from the Reagan-Bush administration about the alleged Contra drug traffickers.

Challenging Reagan

In taking on the inquiry, Kerry challenged President Ronald Reagan at the height of his power, at a time he was calling the Contras the "moral equals of the Founding Fathers." Kerry's questions represented a particular embarrassment to Vice President George H.W. Bush, whose responsibilities included overseeing U.S. drug-interdiction policies.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/102904.html

Read what Hunter S. Thompson said regarding our guy:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/6562575?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single7&rnd=1099717994422&has-player=true

Please don't give up the ship, Senior citizen. The vessel may be taking on water and is listing 33-degrees to starboard, she can still be salvaged. If we man the lifeboats, it'll be worse than what Shackelton and his crew faced.

[Senior citizen]

28. In "Crossing the Rubicon," Mike Ruppert

noted that he had predicted that Kerry would be the Democratic candidate, and said that he didn't have very much hope because he believed that Kerry had helped to cover up some of the worst misdeeds of Iran-Contra. The person in charge of the investigation is the one who is in a perfect position to decide what gets brought to light and what gets hidden. Mike isn't usually wrong, and I should have listened to him.

[Octafish]

29. You and Ruppert make an excellent point.

John Kerry does know more than he's told. While he mentioned BCCI and Iran-Contra during the primaries, Kerry could've SLAMMED Bush during the general campaign -- especially during the debates -- at several opportunities. Like you, I would have. Like you, I wonder why Kerry didn't. Here are a few examples:

1. When Bush brought up Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr. AQ Khan, Kerry could've brought up how he closed down BCCI, the world's largest criminal enterprise, founded by a Pakistani and financed by petrodollars -- the same bank that financed the Pakistani bomb, and Dr. Khan. Bush's father helped keep that bank going, as did Clark Clifford and many prominent DEMs.

2. When Bush called JFK2 a Liberal Liberal Liberal, Kerry could've replied: "I'm proud to be a Liberal. Here's why: Liberals made this country great. From public education to Social Security, from winning the Revolutionary War to the Cold War, the things that make America great are the results of Liberal policies.

3. When Bush's Smear Boat Liars and the VRWC press turned the heat on full blast in August, Kerry could've come back with an ad stating that such bilge was an insult to all veterans who served in Vietnam -- a group which does not include the drunken child molester Dick Cheney or the unelected moron George W Bush.

There are more examples. The way I interpret them is the media did not give Kerry a fair chance to get his message out, let alone respond to all the lies. Sinclair Broadcasting didn't -- they only changed their smear a bit as a result of advertiser pressure. Well, the DEMs are at least half the people in the country. Perhaps with some information -- the kind the Constitution talks about in the First Amendment -- from a free press we can do more than move some advertisers.

[Cleita]

15. No ideas quite yet, but let's start as long as we can.

[Octafish]

19. Let's keep kicking the thought around. The ideas will arrive.

As the Native Americans observed, ideas are like clouds. We see them cross the sky. Perhaps we can call down the ones we need. Heaven knows we must try.

Thanks, Cleita!

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. Interesting idea

-----------------------------------------------------------
FIGHT! Take this country back one town and state at a time!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm

[Octafish]

20. Winston Churchill faced the same enemy we do today -- the NAZIs.

IIRC, it was the unctuous little turd Ralph Reed who formulated the plan the Reich employed: Start with the local school board and township commission; then concentrate on county and state offices, then federal offices; then the presidence. Because they came out as a single rat-swarm at each stage and so few of the DEMs could organize the GOTV, let alone activate the 50-percent who seldom vote, their tactics worked.

Here's what Churchill said that has kept me going this week:

"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Just change a few proper nouns and it is the same enemy.

[bobthedrummer]

21. They never give up, Octafish.

But they always lose!
:hi:

[Octafish]

23. And thus, as Gandhi, we take the high ground, bobthedrummer!

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS." -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

[porkrind]

24. the "old world" needs to liberate us now. (n/t)

[bobthedrummer]

22. Anti-fascist Kick.

:dem::kick:

[Octafish]

25. Unlike Tim "Integrity is for Paupers!" Russert, we have ours.

And we have a plan based on a succesful model.



There are more good people than there are bad.

[goclark]

26. Octafish count me in!

Now we are talking!

The difference with us is that we are seeking the TRUTH.
They are doing dirty tricks.

DU was able to spot their dirty little vote tricks even before the election.

We are the Truth Brigade of the Left Wing

[Octafish]

30. The VRWC in business since November 22, 1963.

Thanks, goclark! You know we've been battling these NAZI turds since Dallas. They don't give up and neither should we.

Still, I can't believe that half the electorate (or whatever the un-Diebold tabulated number is) would support an psychotic idiot who:

* Lied to start a war for oil.
* Did nothing to protect America when warned that Osama was going to strike.
* Looted the national treasury for the benefit of his cronies.
* Considers golf and vacation “hard work.”
* Hijacked religiosity and then used his false piety to smear his opponent as a phony war hero.

That even ONE American can still vote for the little trud from Crawford knowing any of that is unbelievable. And that is why we need our own VLWC — to counter the propaganda and constant media brainwashing.

WE the People have to do it. The Democratic leadership certainly isn’t willing to pick up the mic and call a traitor a traitor or an idiot an idiot. My feeling is they want to, but are afraid of what would happen to them and their families.

People from both parties who’ve said stuff or exhibited backbone have suffered. Remember Edwin Meese’s son was killed in a wild car chase through Washington and James Baker’s son was a suicide. Of course, we must remember Paul Wellstone and John Kennedy, Jr. Only through a Free Press can the people coming of age know them, as well.

What I suggest we do is play by our own rules, our own information system. Then, we use it to call Bush out for what he is: A treasonous ghoul who wants to be king of the earth. They have a name for such a person in the Bible. The exorcist we need is called the TRUTH.

[goclark]

32. Speak Octofish ,tell the TRUTH!

I just finished listening to the AM " NeoCon News.!" It is disgusting!

You would think we are living on another planet.

...Bush and his mandate, a new website for the Bible was shown in glowing details on CNN,then they interviewed someone from a Red States about something stupid,Novak talked about the new Cabinet and how Democrats need to wake up and become more Conservative bla bla bla! He said, "this is a Conservative Country."

I am NOT going to become more conservative! The Democrats WON this election so there is no mandate from the people. They stole it and we sat and let them do it.
Count me in.

[Carl Brennan]

33. Since JFK's death this country has been run by thugs.

except for the Carter and Clinton years. But even in those years the fascists were at work.

[starroute]

31. Some of us are thinking in terms of building a parellel infrastructure

Something to counter the right-wing network of foundations and think-tanks and astroturf corporate fronts. But instead of being top-down and funded by the usual handful of wealthy assholes, ours would be open-sourced and carried on in the light.

There's a lot of raw information about right-wing shenanigans available on the Net, but much of it is scattered and a lot of it refers back to the rise of the VRWC in the 70's and 80's. We need to correlate it, get a line on what is happening right now (the anti-tax and anti-regulation groups seems to be particularly active at the moment), and then work out ways to get information beyond our small circle of the committed and into the hands of people who need to see it.

For example, we are about to witness an unprecedented barage of "experts" from "non-partisan" organizations telling us how Social Security is broken and can only be fixed by privatizing it. Even a lot of liberal young people are inclined to believe that, because it's what they've been hearing for years, and the drumbeat is about to get a lot louder and faster. The only doubts still being raised publicly concern how we can afford to pay for the switch-over -- not whether it is worth doing in the first place.

But all these claims about Social Security are total bullshit! We need to get out the real facts and figures, and we need to do it right this minute! We also need to show that the "expertise" being purveyed comes from a very small number of highly partisan individuals and groups who have a stake in getting the pennies of the American public into the faltering stock market. And we need, in particular, to address the forty year olds, since it is their generation (and not the current seniors) who will really get shafted if this goes through.

Beyond that, there is even more we need to know -- for example, about the military-industrial complex and how it is growing fat off government war-mongering and extending its reach beyond the military sphere into every area of our daily lives. (Homeland security! Prisons! Outsourcing of routine government functions!)

If this line of attack interests you, please PM me and we can conspire together.