#3 TELL-A-VISION 
Lovers
Come and Go
by ~@~
If you are an original reader of http://www.FlyingSnail.com you are aware these pages were dedicated to art and science (period) and avoided subjects having potential of divide and conquer; especially sex, politics, and religion.
That changed around 1998/1999, and it has been ten years and nothing has changed for the better. (otoh) Folks are finally beginning to understand how 'leading a horse to water, but not being able to make the horse drink' relates to public apathy.
One major concern is, NOBODY is asking Presidential Candidates: If THEY want War, where will THEY get the troops, and will THEY bring back the DRAFT?". (fwiw) If a Draft is reinstated, it will be too late to do anything about it.
We will return to regular programming shortly.
Oh, I hope that I see you again I never even caught your name As you looked through my window pane -- So I'm writing this message today I'm thinking that you'll have a way Of hearing the notes in my tune -- Where are you going? Where have you been? I can imagine other worlds you have seen -- Beautiful faces and music so serene -- So I do hope I see you again My universal citizen You went as quickly as you came -- You know the power Your love is right You have good reason To stay out of sight -- But break our illusions and help us Be the light - Message by Michael Pinder
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us and the world will live as one: Reflections on the Spirit and Legacy of the Sixties by Fritjof Capra - December 1, 2002 - Continue Reading
Brokedown Palace - Grateful Dead
Fare you well, my honey, fare you well my only true one. - All the birds that were - singing are flown, except you alone. - Going to leave this brokedown palace, - On my hand and knees, I will roll, roll, roll. - Make myself a bed by the waterside, - In my time, I will roll, roll roll. - In a bed, in a bed, by the waterside I will lay my head. - Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul. - River going to take me, sing sweet and sleepy, - sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home. - It's a far gone lullaby, sung many years ago. - Mama, mama many worlds I've come since I first left home. - Goin' home, goin' home, by the riverside I will rest my bones, - Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul. - Going to plant a weeping willow, On the bank's green edge it will grow, grow, grow. - Sing a lullaby beside the water, - Lovers come and go, the river roll, roll, roll.- Fare you well, fare you well, I love you more than words can tell, - Listen to the river sing sweet songs, to rock my soul.
A long-delayed welcome
by Elizabeth Larson
Sometimes it's the smallest gestures that, ultimately, give the most meaning to our lives, and have the greatest impact on the lives we touch.
One of those small gestures we too often dismiss is the simple act of saying "thank you." And, yet, for some people, hearing those words can make all the difference.
Today, March 30, is an important day to think about not just saying "thank you" but also "welcome home" to our Vietnam veterans. That's because this is the inaugural "Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day," approved by resolutions of both houses of Congress last year.
Thirty-five years ago on this date, the US finalized its pullout of combat troops from Vietnam, after more than a decade of US presence in that country, eight of those years engaged in combat that resulted in more than 58,000 deaths and 300,000 casualties among US Armed Forces members. More than 1,700 soldiers are still missing in action from that war.
Whether or not we'll ever have a truly accurate count of that war's walking wounded -- the men and women who came home with post traumatic stress disorder, other mental health issues and drug problems -- may never be known.
Believe it or not, many of the men and women who served in Vietnam have never had anyone thank them for their service, or felt really welcome home to the country they served.
I've talked to many veterans about what they encountered when they came home. It ranges from indifference from friends and family, to physical attacks and taunting by those who disagreed with the war.
I also have some personal interest in the subject. My own uncle, Darrel Gray, was a Green Beret in Vietnam, a winner of the Bronze Star for Valor, wounded or injured five times, and a victim of Agent Orange exposure, all in the space of one year, 1968.
The son of a World War II vet and great-grandson of a Confederate soldier, he had been in the Army for years by the time he landed in Vietnam.
Now in his early 60s, my uncle still suffers from the effects of post traumatic stress disorder, hearing loss, a body ravaged by the impacts of old wounds and the rigors of his service. Not only did he encounter a bad reception in the US, but an ongoing battle with the Veterans Administration, which didn't want to recognize Agent Orange exposure as a health issue.
Luckily, he had a family who loved and respected him to come home to when his service was up. Personally, I always looked on him with awe. He was my fun uncle, a man who never let on to how much he truly was suffering.
Between my uncle and Dean Gotham, I've learned a lot about the trials of Vietnam veterans.
Gotham is one person who I think should rightfully be called a local hero because of his efforts to reach out to fellow veterans and the community on the many issues Vietnam veterans still face -- besides just being an all-around good guy. Quite frankly, his whole chapter is filled with good guys, good gals and heroes.
He's president of Lake County's Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 951, and he and chapter members worked over the weekend to bring attention to veterans issues and this new day of remembrance through the first-ever sales locally of Agent Orange and POW/MIA clovers.
It was tough duty, standing outside in cold weather, but Gotham joked that he'd had tougher perimeter watch while in Vietnam.
Gotham is an expert at spotting fellow Vietnam vets, many of whom still wear their service as a badge of shame.
As I stood talking to him outside of Bruno's Shop Smart on Friday, a man came up to make a donation and Gotham handed him clovers. Shaking the man's hand, Gotham asked him if he was a Vietnam vet and the man said, somewhat abashedly, that he was.
Gotham said he can recognize Vietnam vets because of the "faraway look" in their eyes.
The more cynical among us might suggest that a welcome home celebration today, so many years shamefully overdue, can't make a difference.
But, I disagree. I think it's a start.
Today should be a day of healing for our vets, and gratitude from the rest of us because they did the frightening work while we enjoyed life at home. They kept the watches through the night and guarded the perimeters to protect their country, even through they were thousands of miles away.
The fact that we're coming full circle, that today you find people who are opposed to the Iraq War yet who still are careful to pay respect to the soldiers who are doing their job, is -- I believe -- thanks to the lobbying over the last three decades by Vietnam veterans.
In fact, Vietnam Veterans of America have as their motto, "Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another." Many local vets affiliated with the local Vietnam Veterans of America have worked hard to look out for young vets coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day day isn't yet a national holiday, but it should be. It's the least we can do in an effort to repair the hurt suffered by the men and women who have waited to be welcomed home all these years. Likewise, it's a reminder of the path we've traveled, and the course we shouldn't ever follow again.
Some moments in our national history will always be a source of pain and division. The Vietnam War is one of them. But the disagreement and pain of that division should no longer rest on the shoulders of the soldiers who went to serve. It's their time to rest.
To our veterans: Thank you for your service. Welcome home. What you did mattered and it won't be forgotten.
http://lakeconews.com/content/view/3696/748/
Czech
artists cleared over atomic TV stunt
by Jemima Kiss, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday March 26 2008
Seven Czech artists who faked a nuclear explosion in a stunt broadcast live on national television were acquitted yesterday of spreading false information, escaping a potential prison term of up to three years.
The Ztohoven group of young artists admitted hacking into a live panoramic broadcast of the Krkonose Mountains in the north of the country on June 17 last year, after climbing a television tower to attach a computer.
Viewers watching the public broadcaster Czech Television saw a bright flash of light followed by an ominous mushroom cloud in the distance.
A county court in Trutnov ruled yesterday that the stunt "was not a criminal act", according to Czech news station CT24, although Czech television said it was "inadvisable and could have provoked panic among a wide group of people".
Some viewers phoned the broadcaster following the stunt concerned about impending war, while others asked if there had been a gas explosion.
Ztohoven, which recently won the NG333 award for young artists from Prague's National Gallery, said it does not have terrorist or political objectives and did not want to "intimidate or manipulate society".
Its Media Reality project aimed to encourage people to think about how our perception of reality is shaped and manipulated by the media, and question the material that is presented to them.
" It drew attention to the possibility of using images of the world created by the media in place of the existing, real world," said a statement by the Ztohoven group on its MySpace profile page.
" We believe that even the free space of a public service broadcaster is able to endure such action and such impeachment. We hope our action will become an appeal for the future and remind the media of their duty to bring out the truth."
GOVERNMENT
OF THE USA IN EXILE
Free Americans Reaching Out to Amerika's Huddled
Masses Yearning to Breathe Free
Via <prez@usa-exile.org>
March 28, 2008
Breakthrough Energy - 26
NOTE: This
remarkable piece--written twelve years ago--provides the best succinct history
of zero-point energy that I've seen anywhere. -- kl, pp
COMMON
SENSE:
Re-Dreaming the American Dream
By Adam Trombly
Our country was founded on the basis that there are certain fundamental freedoms which are inalienable rights of human beings. These freedoms are implicitly ours. They can not be taken away unless we fail to exercise them; i.e. if we fail to be responsible. In the later case we can and will lose these rights in a similar manner to which we lose muscle tissue to atrophy through disuse. The bottom line is this: either we use and exercise our freedoms or we lose them. Responsibility is always at least equal to rights.
We started as a strong willed people willing to fight and even to die for our freedom. We rejected the idea that we should be taxed without representation. We weren't concerned if a member of the Supreme Court or the President of the United States smoked marijuana in the past or in the present. We were concerned as to whether a man or woman cared about basic human freedom and was a responsible caretaker of our collective best interest. Having lived under totalitarian monarchical regimes it was our liberty that was of primary value to us above all else.
This article is about a radical change that must occur not only in our country but across the entire planet. The issue is not provincial. It is pervasive.
The present Administration was elected to be the fountainhead of change. President William Clinton and Vice President Albert Gore were sworn into Office to be the champions of our Liberties and examples to us all of the sacrifice we must make in order for this Union to function in manner that honors what is good about our collective heritage. Those of us who were at all politically astute knew that it was not their task alone but all of ours collectively to endeavor to heal the incredible damage that had been done to our democracy and our environment under the shadow of previous Administrations and Congresses.
We all watched as the same mean spirited individuals and organizations (whom we had by our mandate rejected) assaulted the new President and Vice President and their Administration. We all watched as Congress failed to rally to the support of the men we had elected to the Executive Branch. Many of us felt betrayed once again by the political process itself. Many of us became faint of heart and bereft of motivation to continue with our very necessary participation in this democracy. Many of us watched from the sidelines as we allowed an insidious minority of the American public elect an even more insidious group of people to the United States Congress. We saw the Congress invaded and dominated by dreadful men and women who promised to uphold the Constitution and support the very Environment upon which all of our lives depend but who instead collectively attacked those sacred entities.
We the People of the Planet Earth can no longer afford to allow the health of our society or that of our planet to be compromised by people who wish neither us nor our planet to prosper in a healthy and sustainable manner. Either we take responsibility or we don't. There are no two ways about it.
The American Revolution was initiated by men and women who were simply unwilling to further compromise the quality of their lives. Now in this moment, across this land and indeed the entire Earth there is a growing and urgent awareness of the necessity for a radical change to take place. In order to accomplish this change we must be willing to offer up our very lives without ambivalence. It is ambivalence and compromise with those forces that are less than Love that has led the Planet into this moment of unprecedented crisis.
Instead of a truly representative government the present government is fundamentally based upon compromise with the forces of unlove which lead to destruction and death. On a planetary scale unprecedented in any known period of human history, Life on the Planet Earth is now compromised.
You see it is not just mean spirited and hateful people who have compromised the fate of the Earth. It is us. It is true that we have been repeatedly and collectively deceived and manipulated. But we as a people have allowed this to continue.
All too often we have allowed the voice of that which abuses life to eclipse the light of our own common sense. All too often we have genuflected at the feet of false authorities who tell us the same lies that they tell funding bodies in order to secure financial support for their own agendas and not the agendas of Life or of a healthy nation. Too many of our authorities have become abject whores.
The present Administration in Washington is an enormous improvement over the dark and lingering shadows of Reagan and Bush. The economy has improved. The size of the Federal Government has decreased. The environment is somewhat better after the first four years especially considering the disgusting record of the 103rd and 104th Congress.
Prophet verses Profit
When we look at the present state of affairs it is not that we were not warned. Nikola Tesla warned in the early nineteen hundreds that fossil fuels threatened to foul the air of the entire Earth. He was the first inventor to present technological alternatives to the fossil fuel economy and the power grid upon which we all depend.
He not only invented the first practical alternating current dynamo (which allowed for the distribution of electrical energy in a power grid) he also within a decade or so of that major invention discovered a means to communicate electricity through the Earth or sky without wires. It was for this discovery that JP Morgan cut off his funding. Morgan had heavy investments in copper which the AC dynamo had made more valuable for transmission wires.
Tesla was naive enough to believe that Morgan would be excited by the possibility of universally available energy for all. Tesla believed it was an implicit and inalienable right.
Shortly before his death in 1943 Tesla had submitted a proposal to FDR to counter the damaging potential of fission based nuclear energy development. He claimed in his proposal to the President that he knew of a method by which we could get all of the energy we could ever use from the space that surrounds us.
The meeting that was scheduled with FDR as a result of this proposal never occurred. Tesla was found dead in his New York apartment. The official report attributed his death to natural causes but many were not satisfied that this was the case.
Tesla was a prophet. He was also a visionary. Both sides of Tesla's brain worked just fine. This is what brought him into the line of fire of the increasingly left brained biased scientific community as it was developing in the first half of this century. Therefore one of the most brilliant minds in history was intentionally left out of our history books while you and I were taught to adore the likes of Thomas Edison, founder of the first technological sweat shop. Tesla left Edison in the mist at Niagara Falls where his first commercial AC dynamos were.
Even though he was given to prophesy I doubt that even Tesla had any idea just how bad things would get as the result of the indiscriminate use of fossil fuels.
Consider this. At this very moment as you read this there are literally hundreds of millions of internal combustion engines operating on a worldwide basis. These engines have an average efficiency of approximately twenty percent. This means that literally eighty percent of the energy associated with internal combustion is dissipated. That spells insane levels of waste.
Now in this moment these engines are consuming amazing amounts of our precious oxygen resource in the process of combusting their fuels. Up to fifty percent of the atomic weight of what we refer to as pollution or fossil fuel effluent is in the form of oxygen that has been bound through the combustion process. (CO, CO2, NOx, SOx, H2O2, H2O3, etc.) There are many, many scientists who will tell you that there is so much oxygen on the planet that we could never even put a dent in our supply of this precious gas. However, largely due to the catalytic role of efforts such as Project Earth a large number of scientists have discovered and are continuing to discover the alarming rate at which the oxygen tension in our atmosphere has been and continues to be diminished.
The fact is that at the same time that we are consuming incredible quantities of this life giving gas we are allowing for the destruction of the photosynthesizing oxygen factories of our planet. In the last thirty years seventy four percent of the living ground cover that was present prior to that period has been destroyed on the continent of Africa. The same process that destroyed the rainforests and bushlands of Africa is currently underway in Central America, South America and Southeast Asia as well. The combined result of this unprecedented assault on the Earth is that we now face the very real fact that the entire biosphere has been compromised. It is of critical importance for all of us to understand that the oxygen in the troposphere is the product of Life. It is also critical to note that it is this same biomass released oxygen that migrates into the stratosphere, there through photo-reaction to become ozone. The ozone in the stratosphere is constantly being naturally undermined by various forces. This has always been true. The stratospheric ozone layer must constantly be replenished with oxygen.
PROJECT EARTH was the first to point out that ozone depletion is far from being merely a regional problem effecting Antarctica. We were the only voice in the mid nineteen eighties to reveal to the public the fact of dramatic global decreases in the concentrations of Stratospheric Ozone. Those who joined us in our grave warnings were often ridiculed under previous Administrations and by colleagues who sought to win their favor. Time has revealed that we were correct to warn our friends of this still potentially fatal threat. It is largely because of an incredibly anti-environmental Congress that very little progress has actually been made towards healing of this gaseous membrane that protects us all. As we have for well over a decade we continue to say Wake Up People! Now at this late date it is almost too late to remediate. We are all already paying the price for our political laziness. Malignant sarcoma rates and non HIV immune deficiency syndromes are continuing to soar. Trees are being sun burnt to death. Creatures and human beings in the areas effected the most are being both partially and even totally blinded.
Still the chlorine and methyl bromide factories continue to produce the gases of our Global Auschwitz. Still the population of oxygen consuming internal combustion machines continues to increase unabated. Still the forests of the entire Earth continue to be denuded.
When will we finally demand an end to this madness that is certain to cause us all untold suffering?
We must not allow the Republican Party to continue to control the Congress of the United States! We must not allow those to stay in power who scream for the right to life while defiling the Environmental Laws that protect all of our lives from the rape and pillage of corporate monsters who would gladly sacrifice us all at the altar of ever growing profits with ever fewer who profit. These are the Nazis of our moment. These are the men and women leering down upon an frightened populace as we are poisoned daily by the gas chambers that we all have allowed of our most populated cities to become.
Wake Up People. This not a drill. There are things we can do. There things we must demand that our government facilitate or we will surely perish. We must now in 1996 again be informed of the true technological alternative to the fossil fuel economy which has literally created the atmosphere of death which is choking the life from Planet Earth. We must choose whether or not we wish to continue to live upon this Earth.
Zero
Point Fluctuation
and the Future of Technology
In 1948 a scientist in Europe named Casimir confirmed the existence of a field of energy that pervades all space. By 1951 scientists at Phillips of Holland had confirmed his findings and had further shown that this field had an almost unimaginable energy density. In 1963 John Archibald Wheeler calculated the theoretical density of this all pervading field of energy to be 1093 grams per cubic centimeter! This field has come to be known as the Zero Point Vacuum Fluctuation because it exists in a context that transcends all electromagnetic energies right down to absolute zero degrees K. Recently it has been discovered that technologies can be designed that can exploit this field for power. These technologies create no pollution or radioactive waste. They consume no oxygen. It is my strong belief that if we wish for human life to continue above the ground then we must begin a crash program to research, develop and implement Zero Point Vacuum Fluctuation based technologies in the civilian sector of the economy. Otherwise these technologies will only be developed by the military/industrial complex while the world literally struggles to catch a breath of fresh oxygen rich air. In the fiscal year 1986 Department of Defense Program Solicitation, on page 193, section AF 86-77, subsection 6, there is a request for research efforts to be made in the areas of Esoteric energy sources for propulsion including the zero point quantum dynamic energy of vacuum space.... (Unclassified)
Both the Government and the main population of the scientific community in this country publicly deny the existence of such a possibility, let alone the reality.
Harold Puthoff of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, Texas published a landmark paper in the area of Zero Point Studies in the May 15, 1987, edition of Physical Review D. In this paper Hal has examined the implicit dependency of the hydrogen atom upon the dynamic exchange of energies with space.
This paper provides the scientific community with the beginnings of a foundation upon which to begin to understand the implicit role of zero point vacuum fluctuation phenomena in terms of the nature of manifest existence. As more and more people begin to comprehend these arguments they too will understand that matter is the dynamic modification of vacuum space which is constantly ongoing.
I have been communicating this message in International Forums since 1980. I am very excited that Hal has been able to introduce this consideration through the Physical Review. He represents a rare individual who seems to have transcended much of the academic archetype of the present day.
Significantly, Hal cites the 1975 paper of Timothy Boyer which in my opinion is just as pivotal as his paper in that it clearly and formally established that work (which means the energy required to accomplish a task) can be extracted from the ZPVF background. Boyer suffered some real heat as the result of that publication and eventually yielded somewhat to the pressure. He had just discovered the number one taboo of the current and overspecialized scientific priesthood, the taboo against perpetual motion. This taboo is somewhat based in the currently dominant cosmology of the day.
The dreadful cosmology of the present day scientific community is one in which the universe starts with a big bang and is fragmented into numberless pieces all of which eventually suffer dark extinction when the universe itself dies it's entropic death.
This cosmology of scientific materialism is increasingly the determining cosmology of our culture. Is it any wonder that we face global dis-integration?
Creating The Future
It is safe to say that the understanding of Zero Point Vacuum Fluctuation Physics is one of the more important leaps that has ever occurred in the history of science and indeed of humankind. It disallows for a fragmented universe. It points out that a neg-entropic or non-dissipative process actually characterizes material existence on the most fundamental level. As a contributor and participant in this field of endeavor I have participated in relevant research since1979. The Acyclic Closed Magnetic Experiment ( Phase One of which I participated in with Joseph Kahn) eventually produced an electrical generator design which begins to demonstrate the viability of ZPVF technologies. The rough duplication of our generator accomplished by Paramahamsa Tewari, who is the Director of Quality Control for the Nuclear Power Board of India is an historical first. Mr. Tewari states in a paper published in the American journal, Magnets, that experiments have been carried out on a similar machine (to the Trombly/Kahn machine) constructed by the author at the Tarapore Atomic Power Station (which is near Bombay). The test results show an efficiency of above 250%. That means that Mr. Tewari confirmed that the machine produced two and one half times as much energy as it could have according to previous theories of electrodynamics.
This is the first time in history that such performance has been confirmed by a bonafide third party. Mr. Tewari used the description of our generator as disclosed in our International Patent Document #W082/02126 (which was published in 1982) in order to perform his experiments. The U.S. Patent Office, of course, refused to grant letters of Patent for our generator.
It was in June of 1989 a former collegue and I demonstrated a solid state circuit which produced fifty times the electrical power on the output side as compared to the input. When we went to the U.S. Congress to demonstrate our technology then President George Bush called a last minute meeting with Congress-people and environmental leaders at exactly the same time to discuss his Clean Air Act. Here was a technology (demonstrated the week before in New York) that pointed to a better future; a future free of the taint that the politics of scarcity puts on us all. Our own President diverted our economy yet further into dependency on foreign oil and further than ever away from freedom from it.
It is the People of the United States and indeed the entire planet who suffer the consequences of such stupid governmental actions. People worldwide have been thoroughly baffled that no one in our country has jumped on the almost unprecedented and benign opportunity represented by the development of this new class of technologies for commercial, civilian use. The so-called conservatism of a large sector of the investment community is strangling the lifeblood out of American creativity and innovation.
The time has come in which we must realize that the economy of death is literally bankrupt and there is no more time in which we can afford to be silent about it.
Are we going to stand by as the Department of Defense once again usurps a technological breakthrough for the sake of it's addiction to destruction? If so, we will be seen as a nation wherein uniquely capable individuals develop technologies which are then only allowed to become a part of the war machine. Once again Japan, Germany, China and even India will take the lead in the civilian development of technologies discovered here.
Let's look retrospectively, for a moment, at the broader history of technological development over the past three centuries.
The eighteenth century was the century in which the early development of the steam engine occurred. During the nineteenth century the industrial revolution was fueled by steam technology. The quest for newer and more energy productive fuels as well as more compact technologies to fully exploit them led to the invention of the internal combustion engine in the late nineteenth century. Skeptics scoffed.
The internal combustion engine and related technologies became the cornerstone for industrial development during the twentieth century. Nuclear energy was forced to develop along primitive and dangerous lines (instead of the path of non-proliferating aneutronic forms) in order to provide fissionable material to the military/industrial complex. Now, toward the end of the twentieth century Zero Point Vacuum Fluctuation Based Technologies have been discovered and the theoretical basis for their operation is now beginning to be elucidated. Once again skeptics scoff.
It wasn't until the beginning of the twentieth century that a handful of people who had foresight began to see the profits from their investments into internal combustion technologies a decade or more before. Then they profited at the expense of an entire planet.
The results of the information gathered and modeled during the last few years of our work in Project Earth show that the implementation of ZPVF technologies is a necessity for our survival as a race and for the healing of the Planet. ZPVF technologies will allow for the distribution of energy throughout the entire planet. Everyone will profit. No longer will men and women have to burn anything to keep warm, cook or travel. No longer will the precious air of this Planet be fouled with pollution. The people of all nations will once again breath the good clean air of Earth. No longer will international conflict be the result of the endless power struggle to secure obsolete fossil fuel resources. Our armies will be employed in the replanting of great forests. Our children's children will enjoy the green Earth once again. They will have the leisure to evolve into a new race free of poverty and want. They will enjoy life far more than their grandparents whose busy work fed the corporate and governmental monstrosities that enslaved them and almost destroyed the Planet of our birth.
If you would like to join us in the movement to see this vision become a practical reality then we need you to join the effort. It is the People of this country that will replace those in our government who would destroy the Earth with those who would heal it. It is you and I who must act. We need our own internal and nonviolent political revolution founded upon the principals of our Constitution and the duties laid out for citizens therein in order to secure a life positive future.
The economy and the government of death must yield to the power of Life expressed by We the People.
The agenda of Project Earth offers solutions to much of what has imbalanced the Planet Earth in the Last two centuries.
The Human Physics of Love
Science and new technologies, however, are not sufficient to the emergency we face on this Planet. It is only the expression of Love through response-able action, which is the truly inalienable right and inherent freedom enjoyed by all people who choose to love that can heal this Living Earth. This is the Freedom of the Spirit. That which denies Love has dominated the Life of Earth for long enough. That which denies Love and Life leads inevitably to disintegration and miserable death. Those who Love are not surprised by the existence of Free Energy. Those who choose to Love are Living Demonstrations of Free Energy.
This is Good Science. Even the physics of manifest existence reveals at it's root the Truth of Love.
Love is without edges. It is the Field of Infinite Being. It is the Feeling of Infinite Being. There is no feeling that is greater than Love. Remember? Therefore no-thing or apparent aberrant modification of this One Being can either spatially or even temporally Truly eclipse Love. Love Is Always Already For-Given.
No Power has ever appeared that is ultimately capable of destroying Love.
Love is the Nature of Being
There are those who say it is damaging to careers to say such things. In response I say this.
Those who make a career out of death and the science of destruction will never feel free to cite Love as their Primary Source. I have chosen to make a career of Life and the All Pervading Field of Energy which is the true foundation of the Universe. True Science involves conscious and even moment to moment participation in Being.
In the past of our planet , wise men and wise women were called Seers.
Those who truly understand Reality See with Open Eyes and Open Hearts. Such seeing is not the exclusive domain of the few who live in special isolation. It is our common inheritance from our common source. It is the root of Common Sense.
Now we must all turn about and awaken. It is not good enough for someone else to Understand. We must each and all Understand. Every one of us has felt the overwhelming sense of the pervasion of Love as the Fundamental Field of Existence. Whether in a wheat field in Kansas, a forest in Illinois, by the Chesapeake or in Central Park, in countless places we have all stepped into the timeless Moment of Love. The cosmology of death/entropy is inherently amoral simply because it denies the Reality of Love and renounces those who espouse Love as fanatics, metaphysicians or even psychotics.
The consequences for the denial of the Physics of Love are Simple. Where Love is denied things fall apart. Just look at the Earth today. What other evidence do we require? I ask you, what credentials are truly written in the tortured body of our Mother?
Who is truly involved in the Science of Life could never be silent or ambivalent at such a time.
Buckminster Fuller once said, "Those who are educated to death in turn only communicate that in which they were educated. The credibility of a medical practitioner is to be found in the healing of dis-ease. The future credibility of all science from hence forward must be founded upon the healing of this green Earth. Hypocrisy and compromise with the forces of death are simply forms of inertia. Inertia is ultimately seen in human terms to be the hesitation to Love. This article is not about the condemnation of individuals or classes of individuals to dreadful fates. The concept of eternal damnation is just a sociopolitical tool created by the Roman corporate bureaucracy to manipulate people as it absorbed Christianity and created the Roman Church ( that resulted in countless spin-offs) in order to contain the inexorable force of Love revealed through Jesus and other rare beings in the course of human history.
WE need to be reminded that such containment is simply impossible. This is the time during which the entire Earth is as one who was crucified. This is the Moment. This Moment is the Moment which demands our Resurrection. We must rise up with our voices and our votes. Otherwise we face an environmental Auschwitz. It is in everybody's best interest to see the Earth removed from the cross of greedy and loveless exploitation. It is just Common Sense.
Let the skeptics raise their heads out of the slime of human stagnation. Let those who have been burdened with the belief in the outer darkness of isolated and encapsulated existence Understand Freedom at last. Even all atoms breath the Energy of Spirit. Be Free of the Great Fear. You can't kill Love but you are able to respond as It. You and I are response-able. WE can be Real-as that Force. It is for this reason that Project Earth exists. It is for this reason that Project Earth is Everybody's Priority.
Adam
Trombly
Director
Project Earth
Adam Trombly is an internationally acknowledged expert in the fields of Physics, Atmospheric Dynamics, Geophysics, Rotating and Resonating Electromagnetic Systems, and Environmental Global Modeling. Taking the advice of his friend and mentor, R. Buckminster Fuller, Adam has maintained a "synergistic, global view" within a multi-disciplinary scientific background. From this perspective, Adam offers unique insights into the changes humankind has effected on our environment, and the adjustments our future requires of us now.
http://www.projectearth.com/HTML/Articles/sense.html
Congratulations
Michael !!!
Winners
of New Museum's Altoid Awards;
Creative Capital Receives TOBY Fund Gift
03.21.08 - The winners of the $25,000 Altoids Awards for American emerging artists have been announced. Ei Arakawa of New York City; Michael Patterson-Carver of Portland, Oregon; Lauren Kelley of Houston, Texas; and Michael Stickrod of New Haven, Connecticut were selected among forty-six nominees by a jury composed of artists Paul McCarthy, Cindy Sherman, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
The prize is awarded biennially by the New Museum and Altoids to four artists nominated and selected by a panel comprised entirely of other artists. In addition to cash prizes, the 2008 award recipients will appear in a joint exhibition organized by Massimiliano Gioni, director of special exhibitions at the New Museum, on view from June 25 through October 12, offering these artists their earliest exposure to a broad, international museum audience.
"For so many of these artists, this is a life-changing opportunity, and that is exactly what we are here for--to champion emerging artists and to consistently offer our audiences the chance to experience new art and new ideas from a variety of perspectives," said Lisa Phillips, the Toby Devan Lewis director of the New Museum.
After the War
Michael Stickrod is a recent graduate of Yale University School of Art. In his eleven-minute video 'After the War', the artist travels to his parents' backyard to witness and record his father's experience during the Vietnam War. Once again, a 35-year-old story retold to a son resonates uncannily with today's world events. Stickrod's work is part of a group show entitled 'My Backyard' at Newman Popiashvili gallery in New York until 5 May.
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/mtvideoarchive.php?page=3
Who Murdered Sailors on the U.S.S. Liberty?
Remembering
Peace Activist and U.S. Citizen, Rachel Corrie Murdered
by an ISRAELI Army
4000
President
justifies war to parents of dead
by RON HUTCHESON
WASHINGTON - President Bush defended the war in Iraq on the most personal level Saturday, telling grieving parents of U.S. soldiers who died there that their loss is the cost of keeping America safe.
''It's essential that I explain this properly to the parents of those who lost their lives,'' Bush said in a rare television interview. ``Saddam Hussein was dangerous, and I'm not just going to leave him in power and trust a madman.'' [Click below to continue]
Source: http://www.flyingsnail.com/Dahbud/2deadday.html
For
the Nay Sayers
US Army toyed with telepathic ray gun
12:00
21 March 2008
NewScientist.com news service
David Hambling
A recently declassified US Army report on the biological effects of non-lethal weapons reveals outlandish plans for "ray gun" devices, which would cause artificial fevers or beam voices into people's heads.
The report titled "Bioeffects Of Selected Nonlethal Weapons" was released under the US Freedom of Information Act and is available on this website (pdf). The DoD has confirmed to New Scientist that it released the documents, which detail five different "maturing non-lethal technologies" using microwaves, lasers and sound.
Released by US Army Intelligence and Security Command at Fort Meade, Maryland, US, the 1998 report gives an overview of what was then the state of the art in directed energy weapons for crowd control and other applications.
A word in your ear
Some of the technologies are conceptual, such as an electromagnetic pulse that causes a seizure like those experienced by people with epilepsy. Other ideas, like a microwave gun to "beam" words directly into people's ears, have been tested. It is claimed that the so-called "Frey Effect" – using close-range microwaves to produce audible sounds in a person's ears – has been used to project the spoken numbers 1 to 10 across a lab to volunteers'.
In 2004 the US Navy funded research into using the Frey effect to project sound that caused "discomfort" into the ears of crowds. [Link]
The report also discusses a microwave weapon able to produce a disabling "artificial fever" by heating a person's body. While tests of the idea are not mentioned, the report notes that the necessary equipment "is available today". It adds that while it would take at least fifteen minutes to achieve the desired "fever" effect, it could be used to incapacitate people for almost "any desired period consistent with safety."
Less exotic technologies discussed include laser dazzlers and a sound source loud enough to disturb the sense of balance. Both have been realised in the years since the report was written. The US army uses laser dazzlers in Iraq, while the Long Range Acoustic Device has military and civilian users, and has been used on one occasion to repel pirates off Somalia.
However, the report does not mention any trials of weapons for producing artificial fever or seizures, or beaming voices into people's heads.
Potentially torturous
Steve Wright, a security expert at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, warns that the technologies described could be used for torture. In 1998 the European Parliament passed a motion banning potentially dangerous incapacitating technologies that interfere with the human brain.
"The epileptic seizure inducing device is grossly irresponsible and should never be fielded," says Steve Wright "We know from similar [chemically] artificially-induced fits that the victim subsequently remains "potentiated" and may spontaneously suffer epileptic fits again after the initial attack."
The acoustic energy device that affects the ear canals, disrupting the motion sense, may require dangerously loud sound levels to be effective, points out Juergen Altmann, a physicist at Dortmund University, Germany, who is interested in new military technologies.
"[There is] inconsistency between the part that says "interesting" effects occur at 130-155 dB and the Recovery/Safety section that says that 115 dB is to be avoided - without commenting on the difference."
Complete links and source: http://technology.newscientist.com/
Bush:
The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary and it is just
March 20 2008: George
Bush marks the fifth anniversary of the Full
coverage of the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war invasion with
uncompromising speech.
S.F. Activists
Use Twitter,
Pirate Radio to Manage Anti-War Protesters
By Sarah Lai Stirland
San Francisco anti-war protesters marking the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq are using the micro-blogging service Twitter to coordinate their movements throughout the day. [Great Pictures] [Continue Reading]
Blood
for Oil - The Illegal Iraq Occupation
Miserable Failure Says: Mission Accomplished
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 -> 2103
PIGS-R-U.S.
CORPORATE MEDIA REPORT
WINTER
SOLDIER BLACKOUT CONTINUES:
Look in the Mirror America!!!!!
By Kevin Stoda, Kuwait
As there are reports across the globe of a USA-wide blackout of major media news from the WINTER SOLDIERS presentations or soldiers' testimonies on the Iraq and Afghanistan War at the Labor College outside of Washington D.C. this week, it is time to recall that only one week earlier, George W. Bush told American soldiers in Afghanistan that if he was 20 or 30 years younger he'd love to join them. HOGWASH!
What a ludicrous claim, eh? The man did everything he could to stay out of Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s--i.e. when the original WINTER SOLDIER hearings took place.
http://www.wintersoldierfilm.com/
Has George Orwell's predicted-world come fully into reality in the U.S.A. in 2008?
Only the independent media, like REAL NEWS NETWORK
http://therealnews.com/web/index.php, is doing its job.
Otherwise, only the Huffington News seems to have noticed this gaping absence, despite complaints appearing all over the web, like on YAHOO discussion lists.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-cohen/iraq-winter-soldier-heari_b_91776.html
Even the BBC's coverage has not been as good as one would expect from a respected international news network.
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/bbc-coverage-of-winter-soldier/
This week's sad and truthful testimonies from Iraqi and Afghanistan during the 5th anniversary of George W. Bush's illegal pre-emptive attack on Iraq in 2003 should be on the evening news in America for ten minutes a day all this week--or all month till Bush is impeached and the boys and girls of America are called home.
The silence from America is deafening.
No corporate U.S. media was on hand in 1971 for the original WINTER SOLDIER in Michigan. But, why repeat that error?
Now the world's-most-expensive media conglomerates, like CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, and CBS are missing the aircraft carrier of truth in our nation's harbor
Thank goodness for Democracy Now (which has added over 400 stations since this war on Iraq was revealed as planned by it's new reporters in August 2002)--and other independents, like Alternet
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/79789/
Well, America, I plead with you to spend at least one hour watching some of the hour-long recordings of those presentations.
Go on the web and get hooked on to the biggest news story of 2008 and the most important stories of the past decade--the real stories of our new heroes, WINTER SOLDIERS 2008.
Penny Coleman says, "If America listens to what they say, the war would be over tomorrow."
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_alone_080317_winter_soldier_black.htm
WINTER
SOLDIER INVESTIGATION
Washington, D.C. 13-16 March 2008
Slideshow from RainbowPuddle.com
http://www.rainbowpuddle.com/ - digg
http://www.rainbowpuddle.com/WSSite/Winter_Soldier_Investigation.html
WINTER
SOLDIER 2008 Video
from
RainbowPuddle.com
Slideshow Movie: http://www.rainbowpuddle.com/WSIstills.mov
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zOlS58nTQI
Corporate
Media Do Not Care About U.S. Military
or an Illegal Iraq War and Failed
To Cover
Winter Soldier 2008
Iraq
Veterans Against the War
http://ivaw.org/
Veterans
for Peace
How
to Listen/Watch - http://www.veteransforpeace.org/
Why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's gonna happen? It's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? - Barbara Bush, 3/18/2003
Rule
of terror: Dalai Lama accuses China as dozens are reported dead
March 17 2008 - guardian.co.uk: Dalai Lama accuses China
of a 'rule of terror' as violent unrest spreads to at least two neighbouring
provinces
Video:
'It will forever be the right decision'
March 14 2008: Almost
five years after the invasion of Iraq, the US president, George Bush,
defends his decision to go to war in a speech to religious broadcasters
in Tennessee
Evil
Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Raygun Invade Berkeley 1969
Photo: Ron
Stinnett - Source: http://www.peoplespark.org/69gall6.html
Remind
Us: Why did the United States invade Iraq?
[Click
for Flash Video] - [Hot
Link]
If a president is willing to lie about the most basic governmental and political facts, civic debate becomes impossible, and the public becomes incapable of informed judgment. Because of the great weight that any president's words have with the public, the president of the United States must not be a liar. - Tony (I wonder what I was smoking when I said that) Blankley
The Scooter Libby verdict is inextricably linked to Iraq: his lies were an attempt to cover up the disingenuous case for war. - Sidney Blumenthal
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/.../03/scooter_libby_1.html
Evil
Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Raygun Invade Berkeley 1969
Photo: Dick Corten -
Source: http://www.peoplespark.org/69gall8.html
Washington,
D.C.
CODEPINK
ACTION CALENDAR
Screening
of Winter Soldier Testimonies
Saturday, March 15th 2008 4 pm
CODEPINK will host a viewing of Iraq Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier
LIVE testimonies at the Pink House on Saturday afternoon at 4 pm. Tell your
local news stations to broadcast these testimonies of veterans!
Orientation
- Work Party
Sunday, March 16th 2008 Noon - until
Find out what's planned for the upcoming week of powerful actions and help
with preparations followed by a networking opportunity at Busboys and Poets.
Peace
Party at Busboys and Poets
Sunday, March 16th 2008 7 pm
Peace Party at Bus Boys and Poets. Come dance the night away with the Pink
Ladies!
Take
Back America March 17-19
Monday, March 17th 2008
Join CODEPINK at Take Back America 2008 to ensure that the Progressive Community
hears our voices for peace.
Restore
the Constitution
Tuesday, March 18th 2008 10am-1pm
Let us shed a "pink light" on the criminality, collusion and corruption
within our government and recognize the assault on our nation's Constitution.
March with us to resurrect the spirit of our founding mothers and fathers.
From the National Archives, on to the Justice Department, and the IRS the pageantry
of the morning will close with a ceremony of renewal, and recommitment to the
Constitution at the West Lawn reflecting pool. "The most common way people
give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." Alice Walker
Evening
Event at Bus Boys with Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
Tuesday, March 18th 2008 8:15 to 9:15 pm
Rev Billy comes to Washington on the anniversary of Shock and Awe, which has
turned mostly to Sorrow and Anger, with his preacher message of "Peacealuyah!
Congress, Stop Shopping for War!" Rev Billy is a phenomenon and this is
a night you won't want to miss!
National
Day of Civil Resistance - 5 Years Too Many!
Wednesday, March 19th 2008
We are organizing creative, nonviolent acts of civil disobedience to interrupt
business as usual for those promoting and profiting from war and empire building.
VETERANS
MARCH FOR PEACE
ESTABLISH FIELD HOSPITAL IN D.C.
March 19, 2008 - 9 a.m. - at 7th Street NW on
the Mall
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Veterans_march_for_peace_2008.vp.html
As many of you may be aware on March 19th, the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, VFP will be marching throughout Washington, DC. But what you may not realize is that we are also setting up a Field Hospital in McPherson Square. The purpose of this action is twofold. First all of the purpose is to bring attention to the problems of Veterans returning home and the lack of care from the VA. Secondly we hope to alert passersby to the reality of the horrors of war. Everyone is encouraged to join us!
I WANT YOU to end the war in Iraq, and to support and defend the Constitution and the country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Join us in Washington D.C. and make history.
VETERANS
WORKING TOGETHER FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE THROUGH NON-VIOLENCE.
Veterans For Peace, 216 S. Meramec, St. Louis, MO 63105, 314-725-6005
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/
BORED?
FATIGUED? DEPRESSED?
WHY NOT TRY
REVOLUTION!
Surveys show smashing the State and destroying Corporatism are good for your health and lots of fun, too! TRY IT! YOU'LL LIKE IT! == Remember:
The
only solution is World Revolution!
(Issued
as a public service by NOBODY)
'Chicago 10' recollects the radical '60s
The infamous Chicago 8 trial that took place in 1968 and 1969 remains one of the most memorable farces in the history of American justice. Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and six others were charged with conspriracy to organize a riot during the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. Brett Morgan's doc, Chicago 10, traces the protests and police brutality that shook the nation and recreates the trial using animation and actors' voices to tell the riveting story.
It begins with the convergence of MOBE and the Yippies - two groups that opposed the Vietnam War and were determined to make a big splash outside the convention. Thousands of protesters arrived in Chicago that August with flowers in their hair and joints in their pockets. However, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley had plans of his own, dispatching helmeted goon squads with batons and bayonets wherever the peaceniks congregated - outside the Hilton hotel, inside Grant Park or during marches that paraded through the city.
The gruesome footage peaks with beatings and arrests. Many of the protestors were bloodied. It looks like the South during the Civil Rights protests.
http://www.celebstoner.com/images/stories/Chicago10.jpg
Several months later, Hoffman, Rubin, Dave Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, Bobby Seale, John Froines and Lee Weiner were indicted. Like the protests they organized, the Chicago 8 defendents turned the trial into guerrilla theater with a touch of comedy that lightened the heavy nature of the charges. Judge Julius Hoffman (voiced by Roy Scheider) represents the out-of-touch establishment and attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass do their best to unravel the government's case. Still, they were found guilty until the charges were overturned a year later.
One of key Yippie organizers who didn't get indicted, Paul Krassner, appears in the film in footage as well as in several animated sequences. He tells CelebStoner: "Stew Albert and I were among the unindicted co-conspirators, and Bill Kunstler told us it was because the prosecution was afraid we'd use a First Amendment defense."
Krassner and Albert were Yippie co-founders (Krassner is credited with coining the group's name). Krassner published The Realist at the time.
In his HuffPo column about Chicago 10, Krassner points out several scenes that were omitted from the movie. One is when he dosed during the trial:
"I decide to take a tab of LSD at lunch before testifying. I’ve learned that if I drop acid with a big meal, it always makes me vomit. That way, I don’t have to memorize all those dates and places. And it’ll be my theatrical statement on the injustice of the trial. Abbie was furious...
"Although Brett 'loved, loved, loved' the scenes I wrote, the backers objected to the use of LSD, fearful of diverting attention from the main focus of the film. I was disappointed, if only for the sake of countercultural history. The CIA originally envisioned employing LSD as a means of control; instead, for millions of young people, acid served as a vehicle to explore their own inner space, deprogramming themselves from mainstream culture and living their alternative. The CIA's scenario had backfired. Anyway, my suggestion - instead of referring to it as acid, Abbie could yell, 'Hey, this is powerful fuckin' aspirin' - was rejected."
Chicago 10 is currently playing at 11 theaters in New York, Illinois, California and Massachusetts, and expands to nine more on March 14. Click here to see the theaters.
Note: There are several scenes depicting marijuana use in the movie.
http://www.celebstoner.com/reviews/movies-tv/...
Atlanta
Protest Arrests
digg
An
Honorable Man
Admiral William J. Fallon
and
The Lying Miserable Failure
Supreme Court Appointed Torture pResident
Do Blondes Really Have More Fun?
An Irishman, a Mexican and a Blonde Guy were doing construction work on scaffolding on the 20th floor of a building.
They were eating lunch and the Irishman said,
"Corned beef and cabbage! If I get corned beef and cabbage one more time for lunch, I'm going to jump off this building."
The Mexican opened his lunch box and exclaimed,
"Burritos again! If I get Burritos one more time I'm going to jump off, too."
The blonde opened his lunch and said,
"Bologna again! If I get a bologna sandwich one more time, I'm jumping too."
The next day, the Irishman opened his lunch box, saw corned beef and cabbage, and jumped to his death.
The Mexican opened his lunch, saw a Burrito, and jumped, too.
The blonde guy opened his lunch, saw the bologna and jumped to his death as well.
At the funeral, the Irishman's wife was weeping.
She said, "If I'd known how really tired he was of corned beef and cabbage, I never would have given it to him again!"
The
Mexican's wife also wept and said, and I could have given him tacos or
enchiladas!
I didn't realize he hated Burritos so much."
Everyone turned and stared at the blonde's wife.
The blonde's wife said,
"Don't look at me. He makes his own lunch"
President Used Illegal Wiretap to Nail Gov. Pimp Bling?
March 11, 2008 - Intelligent people are questioning if Karl Rove or the Bush Administration used illegal AT&T wiretaps to spy on Democrat Governor Eliot Spitzer a.k.a. Governor Pimp Bling.
"We had a gut feeling Spitzer was linked to al Qaeda," said pResident, "so we spied on him using our favorite tool, warrantless wiretap." [Continue Reading]
Was Spitzer News A Cover-up for pRedisent's Miserable Failures?
Headlines, March 11, 2008
Eight US Soldiers Die in Iraq Attacks
Two Bombs Strike Pakistan, 25 People Dead
House
sues administration for documents, testimony
[Harriet E. Miers and Joshua B. Bolten]
Afghanistan deaths reached 8,000 people and 1,500 were civilians
The $3 trillion war
China crushes protest by monks in Tibet
The
End of the World
[Flash Video Contains Some Strong Language]
One
Nation Under Perverted Government
Bush
vetoes bill banning waterboarding
George W. Bush, Torture President Appointed by Supreme Court, Republican Party Becomes Torture Party, Limp Democrats Without Bullocks, or... Ministers of Satan?
Dwight D. Eisenhower, a REAL Republican President and Retired General once said, "Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less [Republican George W. Bush] would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad." in The Military-Industrial Complex.
When Republicans Go Bad - It's Not the First Time - Ministers of Satan - Torture President - March Archive
Down
In Florida, Where the green grass grows
There sat a Hill without any clothes.
Along comes Karl swinging a GOP chain,
He pulls down his zipper and out Harris came.
Three
months later, all was well,
Six months later, Hill began to swell,
Nine months later RE-RUN.
Governor Porn Star To: Lay Off 107,000 Teachers?
Cutting 10 percent or $4.8 billion from public education funding would be equivalent to:
Laying off more than 107,000 teachers...
Or laying off 137,000 Education Support Professionals...
Or shutting down every school across the state for nearly a month...
Or increasing class size by 35 percent...
Or reducing per-student spending by more than $800...
Or cutting more than $24,000 per classroom!
http://www.cta.org/media/publications/educator/current/0208_tas_02.htm
Rethinking
Corporate Media
PermaLink: http://www.flyingsnail.com/Dahbud/images/rethinking_corp_media.html
Town
votes to indict president
By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff
March 5, 2008
BRATTLEBORO — Residents in this iconoclastic town cast a symbolic protest vote Tuesday, directing town officials to draw up indictment papers against President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for violating their oath of office.
The tally was 2,012 in favor to 1,795 against. It was the second southern Vermont town to adopt the anti-Bush resolution on Vermont's Town Meeting Day, as Marlboro voted earlier in the day 43-25 in favor, with three abstentions.
Organizer Kurt Daims of Brattleboro said he was disappointed at the relatively close margin of victory, which came during exceptionally heavy voter turnout during Vermont's presidential primary.
"It was a very difficult thing for the people of Brattleboro to do. I think it's brave for Brattleboro to do it. Brattleboro did just fine," Daims said.
"But I'm disappointed. I was really hoping and expecting a wider margin," he said.
Voters who were questioned after they voted said they recognized it as a protest vote, and a way of registering their frustration with the Bush administration and its controversial policies, most notably the invasion of Iraq.
But Daims and other organizers said they hoped the Brattleboro vote would set an example for other towns and communities across the country to say no to the Bush presidency.
Barry Aleshnik said the group had been contacted by towns across the country, and that a "Brattleboro template" was being drawn up to be distributed to interested communities.
"We got a letter from south Jersey, saying that 'Brattleboro will be setting an example, and that it could set off a ripple effect across this angry nation,'" Aleshnik read.
"We can be proud of Brattleboro for being a model of what needs to be done and what needs to be stated," Aleshnik said.
Select Board candidate Jesse Corum, who was a top vote-getter in Tuesday's election, said he opposed the issue on a variety of reasons, not the least of which was its divisiveness.
"It's creating a division, and we need to create unity," Corum said.
Former state Sen. Nancy Chard, D-Windham, said she voted for the resolution as a protest against the policies of the Bush administration, and out of great frustration with its actions.
"I think people are frustrated and there's no other way for them to express it," Chard said. Last year, Brattleboro town meeting members voted in favor of impeachment of Bush and Cheney, she noted, but nothing came of it.
"We just want to make a statement," she said.
In Marlboro, which has the reputation of being the bluest town in the bluest county in the state, Jonathan Morse brought the issue up on the floor of his town's meeting. It was adopted after a great discussion, he said.
"People took it very seriously, and we had an extended discussion, but there were only 75 voters left," said Morse, who said he had contacted Daims ahead of time to get the Brattleboro wording.
Morse said Marlboro adopted the issue as a symbolic gesture.
"We don't even have a policeman, we have a constable who does not have police powers," said Morse, referring to the wording in Brattleboro, which calls for Bush and Cheney's "arrest" if they ever step foot in town.
But Morse said people were particularly frustrated with the inaction by U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who refuses to act on the impeachment issue, despite entreaties by many Vermonters to do so.
"We can't just sit back and let them destroy our constitution,'' said Morse, noting that under Bush several constitutional rights had been eroded: habeas corpus, the right to due process and the right to privacy in your affairs.
Brattleboro town officials didn't know what to expect, given the history and the reaction to the indictment resolution.
Town Clerk Annette Cappy said she had asked for more of a police presence at the polls, in case some of the people who wrote to the town last month protesting the issue showed up to lodge their unhappiness.
Brattleboro police took the unusual step of registering the media who appeared at the polls as well. The issue attracted a few out-of-state television stations.
The results drew a protest from Blair Latoff, a spokeswoman from the Republican National Committee, who had been following the issue.
"It appears that the left wing knows no bounds in their willingness to waste taxpayer dollars to make a futile counterproductive partisan political point. Town people would be much better served by elected officials who sought to solve problems rather than create them."
The Brattleboro Initiative, as its supporters called it, was the brainchild of Daims, who, along with other members of the Brattleboro Peace and Justice Group, were frustrated with the lack of action on the town's vote to impeach Bush and Cheney.
Daims, who gathered more than 700 signatures in January to put the issue on the town meeting ballot, said it was important for individuals to take a stand for what they believed in, regardless of the size of the town.
The indictment resolution would only go into effect once Bush and Cheney leave office in 2009, according to Daims, and only if the U.S. Congress fails to act to impeach the president and vice president.
Two years ago at town meeting, the town of Newfane became the first Vermont town to take up the issue of impeachment. It was passed overwhelmingly, and a handful of other Vermont towns also took up the matter under "other business" during their meetings.
In 2007, 40 towns passed resolutions asking Congress to bring impeachment action against Bush and Cheney, but to date Welch has refused to act on the town's recommendations.
The issue drew attention to the town and its supporters from all over the country, and a film crew from California