Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 20:22:00 -0500

To: greenpartydrugsgroup@...

From: Dana Beal

Subject: MMM 2004 #9: Join the Kerry Drug War Thread!; Amherst, Montreal,
Rio Make 122 Cities on the MMM Poster for 2004!

CC: [long deleted list of email addresses]

So far, 122  Cities are Signed up for 2004 .

MAYDAY IS JAY-DAY!

(This year, the first Saturday of May falls on May 1. We are recommending Sunday, May 2 or Monday May 3 in cities where there is significant conflict with other local events--or as a rain date. Of course, we understand that some schools have to do it on 4/20 because their school year is over by May, and that some northern cities have to do it a little later in May...)

albany
albuquerque

amherst

amsterdam

ashland

athens

auckland

austin

bakersfield

basel

bergen

berlin

berne

boone

bratislava

bremen

buenos aires

buffalo

burlington

capetown

chico
christchurch
cincinnati

cleveland

cologne

columbia

dallas

darmstadt

darwin

dayton

des moines
detroit
dover

dublin

dunedin

eau claire

eugene

fairbanks

fayetteville

flint

frankfurt

ft. lauderdale

geneva

halifax

hearst

helsinki

hilo

houston

hull

kansas city

kingston

kristiansand

lansing

las vegas

lausanne

lebanon

leon

levin

london

lucerne

mexico city

minneapolis

missoula

montpelie

montreal

moscow

napier

nashville

newark

new orleans

new york

nimbin

ogden

omaha

orlando

oslo

paducah

paris

parkersburg

perth

philadelphia

phoenix

portland

portland

prague

raleigh-durham

rapid city

richmond

rio de janero

roanoke

rome

rosario

sacramento

salt lake city

san diego

san francisco

san juan

san marcos

spokane

springfield

stavanger

st. louis

sturgeon falls

tallahassee

tampa

tel aviv

thunder bay

toronto

tokyo

traverse city

trondheim

tucson

tupelo

turku

upper lake

vancouver

vienna

washington, d.c.

wellington

wichita

wilmington

zurich

Help us reach our goal of 300 cities worldwide!

To get on the poster for 2004--"Mayday is Jay Day"--check yr contact info and email me back telling me to add yr city to the List at the top of this email. By the way, I lost about three weeks email not long after last year's event, and have had intermittent email service since that time.. Did anything happen on the first Saturday of May in your area? Numbers? Arrests? Media? Anything of interest happen, etc?

You can also call me at 212-677-4899--or leave a message on 212-677-7180.

Dana/cnw

P.S.: We are also interested in adding to our list of prestigious endorsers, which consists of pot activists well-known in their city or country. We need a name and phone number for each. Any suggestions?

P.P.S: We need on average $100 for each affiliate to print  and ship this year's poster.  If you can't send it, we have to raise it somewhere else.

 

HELP RAISE MONEY FOR THE MILLION MARIJUANA MARCH--BOOK A YIPPIE SPEAKER!

Recently we wrote you that we need on average $100 for each affiliate to print  and ship this year's poster--and that if you can't send it, we have to raise it somewhere else.

You can help. Go to http://www.yippiespeakers.com  Here's the good news: 20% of all speaker fees go to printing and operating expenses for the MMM 2004. (If you can get me booked personally it's 100%.)

Some of these speakers like Grace Slick and Hunter Thompson get $25,000 just for appearing at yr local university! (Some like Dennis Peron are available for a few thousand) Your local group gets 4% finders' fee.

What we need you to do is contact yr local on-campus activists and have them agitate their student affairs folks in charge of outside speakers  (or equivalent) to book some of our speakers. It's important to clarify that we are NOT  asking them to get this from the budget of their NORML or SSDP chapter, but from the campus office that books outside speakers. (At Kent State they call it the Office of Student Life, and they paid me $4,000 for a three hour appearance, which went straight to the printer.)

It's a good year for it. Things have come full-circle for Yippie! We have all the elements--an illegitimate  Republican President everyone hates at home, a quagmire war abroad--for the first time  since the '70's. And best of all, even though all our speakers support cannabis and oppose the drug war, they are Yippie, not legalization speakers, so you won't have to deal with demands from the university administration that you find some anti-drug speaker for "Balance" or you don't get the booking. (Since we are moving toward protests against the Republican Convention in NYC next August, to be fair they'd have to demand an opponent of protests, period, which is absurd.)

If you have a hot prospect,  email me right back; but since  about half of everything sent to this address "bounces", be sure to also put in a call to the speakers bureau at 212-677-7180, and leave a message if no one picks up.

Dana/cnw

*****!!!Cannabis Liberation Day--Mayday Weekend 2004:  Updates,  Reports!!!*****

From: tribble@...

Hash: SHA1

Hello dear Legalizers from all over the World,

 most of you won't know me, and i want to apologize to use dana's
 adresslist. But i think its the right thing. I am Martin, and i do some
 stuff in the hemp museum berlin ( http://www.hanfmuseum.de/ ). Some of
 you will know the Hanf Parade which happens yearly in Berlin, this
 organisation is located here as well. I do the "computer stuff" here.

 What i want to ask you is if you can send me audio-visual material from
 your Legalize Action, MMM, discussion session and all this?

 I have the possibility to digitalize tapes if you do not have it in
 digital. I can send it digitalized back to you.

 All i want this is for my projects:

 First, audio content will be used in my internet radio. It is heavily
 drug related, but it is still beta. You can check it out at
 http://r.hanfplantage.de/ .

 Second, i think nearly everyone of you who organise a MMM will have recordings
 from it. The video content will be cutted by me to make a worldwide MMM
 video.

 Further details can be mailed with me, otherwise if someone of you do
 have an instant messenger like ICQ or jabber ( http://www.jabber.org/
 ) you can contact me instantly:

 jabber: tribble@...
 icq: 13700190
 msn/yahoo/aim: foobar2342@...

 Since i want to put the audio/video content on the net, be sure that this
 can be done - pictures are cool too, but have copyrights sometimes.
 For big video data on the net i'm on the search for "free traffic", but
 if you do have a dsl connection, you can help too.

l8rz,
 m.

- --
 legalize!

---------

Amherst: Emily (508) 525-9138 c/o  U. of Mass at Amherst/Cannabis Reform, SAO  Mailbox #2, Amherst, MA 01003 413-545-1122

---------

Montreal: Marc-Boris St. Maurice blocpot@... or Hugo St-Onge 514-842-4900 Chez_Marijane (coffee shop) 74 Rachel St. East, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2W 1C6

---

Makers of Hemp Foods Win Legal Victory By Carolyn Jung
Source: Mercury News February 06, 2004

Makers of hemp foods, who waged a 2-year fight with the federal government, won a major victory Friday when a federal appeals court ruled unanimously that their beers, bread, cereals, granola bars, waffles and other products can stay on supermarket shelves. Nowhere was the decision by San Francisco's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals more hailed than in California, home to more hemp food manufacturers than any other state.
Read More...  http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread18311.shtml
-------
DEA Cannot Regulate Naturally-Occurring THC
Source: Common Dreams February 06, 2004 

San Francisco, Ca. -- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: The Hemp Industries Association (HIA), representing over 200 hemp companies in North America won their 2 1/2-year old lawsuit today against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in a decision that permanently blocks DEA regulations that attempted to ban nutritious hemp foods such as waffles, bread, cereal, vegetarian burgers, protein powder, salad dressing and nutrition bars.

Read More... http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread18308.shtml

-----

From Marijuana Party to NDP

by Dana Larsen (05 Jan, 2004)

From the editor

On November 27, I officially resigned my membership in the Canadian Marijuana Party, and my role as Leader of the BC Marijuana Party. I did this so I could join Canada's New Democratic Party, commonly known as the NDP.

The NDP is Canada's fourth largest political party, and is almost certainly going to grow in influence and Members of Parliament in Canada's next federal election, to be held in Spring 2004. It is my intention to run as a candidate for the NDP in my riding of West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast.

I made this move away from the parties that I helped found, because I believe that the NDP is the best hope for Canada's future. The NDP is Canada's only major party whose leader has explicitly stated support for fully legalized marijuana. NDP Leader Jack Layton did an interview with Cannabis Culture publisher Marc Emery on Pot-TV, in which Layton called cannabis a "wonderful" substance, and said that it should be enjoyed in a "legal environment."

The NDP is also a proponent of social justice, Canadian sovereignty, and proportional representation. The party also took a strong stand against the US invasion of Iraq, and supports the idea of legal gay marriage.

There is now an ongoing debate within the Canadian Marijuana Party, as to whether the whole federal party should be dissolved into the NDP, or whether there is still a role for the party to play. This will be more fully covered next issue, but at this point it looks like Canada's Marijuana Party will persist through this coming federal election.

In the US, there is no major federal party willing to take a strong stand in support of fully legal marijuana, and so the US state Marijuana Parties continue to proliferate. Modeled after our successes in Canada, we hope that these US parties also start to see their pro-pot platforms being adopted by the mainstream parties.

We have been invited into Canada's political mainstream, and we should not squander this unique opportunity. I urge my Canadian readers to join the NDP, and work to nominate local NDP candidates who back their leader's pro-legalization stance. This is a unique opportunity to have our voice heard inside Parliament, and for us to actually create laws which will liberate our culture and our plant.

I urge my Canadian readers to follow my lead and join the NDP. Let's work from within, to nominate and elect pro-pot candidates at the federal level. Let's ensure that in Spring 2004, we have people in government who will push for complete legalization of marijuana and an end to the drug war.

Yours in liberty,

Dana Larsen
Editor, Cannabis Culture

* Any readers who wish to assist me in my election campaign should please contact me at: dana@...

* US Marijuana Party: usmjparty.org

-----------

From: toots_77@...

Hey everybody,
 
It's Michelle in Reno.  I wanted to give you my new email address.  Pretty much the same as before.  toots_77@....  I was also wondering how to pull up the info. on the disk I received.  I will try again, but nothing happened the first time.  I'm getting things going here and will be in touch as things move along.  Hope all is well.
 
Peace,

Michelle

From: damnrobrob@...

New Paltz, NY
Sunday May 2nd
SUNY at New Paltz
2pm - 11pm FREE
Vendors, bands, speakers, free information, voter
registration, legal hemp products, petitions, great
people, good vibes plus sooo much more!

(845) 257-2687 New Paltz NORML / SSDP

www.newpaltz.edu/norml

newpaltznorml@...



thanks and going to be a good one this year!

__________________________________

From: revtombrown@...

To all our relations.
Greetings in the name of the most high, Jah Rastafzri, ever faithful, ever sure, Jah Rastafari.
One love Brethren.
 
Brethren, give thanks and praises for the work of the Brethren bears fruit in the eyes of InI of Jah.  Thanks to Rev. Roger Christie of THC Ministry on the Big island for the information.
 
If we look in the books listed below we can see with I eye the TRUTH of Jah forbidden by the Catholic Pope Innocent in the late 1100's.
 
Websters New World Hebrew Dictionary,  ISBN 0-671-8891-5, page 650,  Marijuana = kanabos,  page 164, kaneh=stalk, page 49, bosem=scented
 
The Living Torah, The Five Books of Moses,  Rabbi Kaplan, Maznaim Publishing Corp., page 443, Exodus 30:23, Scented Cane is translated as Keneh Bosem and accompanied with a drawing of the female Hemp plant.
 
Brethren, there can be no doubt amongst us.  Jah gave us the marijuana, kanabos, Keneh Bosem
to aid our overstanding of the Word and Intention of Jah amonst us.  Stand forth Brethren for the Word of Jah is handed down from the ancients to our time and place.  Stand forth Brethren for all that we can be in the Hand of Jah.
 
One love  revtombrown

Create your own personal Web page with the info you use most, at My MSN.

********************

*****BUSHWHACKED!!*****

***********************

From: mikecane01@...

"I wanted to wait 'til the February 3rd polls opened
to post this, because I wanted it to be a post-mortem
and not a vivisection. What follows is a long musing

on the Dean campaign's use of internet tools, but it
has a short thesis: the hard thing to explain is not
how the Dean campaign blew such a huge lead, but
rather why we ever thought that lead actually existed.
Dean's campaign didn't just fail, it dissolved on
contact with reality."

http://www.corante.com/many/archives/2004/02/03/exiting_deanspace.php

Two US Soldiers ask: "When will we stop dying so senselessly?", Jay Shaft, January 31, 2004
By Jay Shaft Interviews 2 U.S. Soldiers

Jan 31, 2004, 10:02


Over the Christmas holidays I managed to find two US soldiers who were back from Iraq. They were both somewhat willing to be interviewed and describe their time in Iraq in their own words.

One was imminently returning to Iraq within a few days and the other was home for an unknown length of time. Both knew at some point they would be returning to a bloody guerilla conflict, and they did not know if they would be coming back.

The holidays for them were overshadowed by the somber nature of seeing the news reports of troop deaths on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. During their festive times they always had the specter of Iraq looming at the back of their minds like a ghost of Christmas past. I was really amazed that they were able to forget about the war and just enjoy being with their families, even if only for a short time.

You could see the strain in their faces, and an almost haunted look in their eyes. They were doing their best to put aside all the bloodshed and horror they had recently seen, and get into the holiday spirit that the whole country was enjoying.

Thoughts of all the troops they had left behind were weighing heavy on their minds. Neither one knew the other before coming back on leave. They had met in the airport and realized they were both returning to the same hometown for leave. On the trip home they got to talking, and shared their experiences as officers leading combat troops on patrols and into battles.

I talked to one of the men first and conducted an initial interview with him. He mentioned that he knew of another officer in the area who had come home for leave who might also speak out about Iraq. I knew I had to get them both to describe their experiences as officers in charge of combat units. I have interviewed many enlisted men and gotten their eyewitness accounts of Iraq, but had not been able to get any officers to talk to me.

I will present the interviews as they occurred, in the men s own voices as they requested. I wanted to give them the opportunity to speak directly to the American people and the world. I have changed as little of the actual interviews as possible. I have left out some personal details, and any unit details, which might be used to identify these soldiers. I am dedicated to protecting them from military reprisals and harassment, and I have taken every precaution to keep their identity hidden.

I will refer to them as O1 and O2.

JS- When did you deploy to Iraq?

O1- I went with a unit from Afghanistan to Iraq. We got there a good little bit before the official war started. Believe me when I tell you that there were some units already across the border doing scouting and intelligence gathering and other missions like bomb targeting and artillery plotting.

O2- About a month before the war started. I don t want to get to specific on that date. They are going to be looking for any small way to track me down.

JS- Okay, before we go any farther, I want to get into the details behind breaching the Iraq border before the war officially started. If the US did break the border that is a violation of the Geneva Convention and a whole list of international treaty declarations and charters. It violates the UN charter and goes contrary to NATO treaties and declarations also.

There had been a group of international peacekeepers and many humanitarian organizations that maintained that the US illegally invaded Iraq weeks or even months before the actual war was started. The US has denied any of these accusations, but I have heard from several US soldiers who say that the border was breached for weeks before the invasion. Was it? And if it was, how extensively?

O1- I really didn t want to get into this one. I know that there were at least 100 or more special ops and CIA types in Iraq in the months leading up to the war. This is pretty open knowledge among many officers and higher level NCOs. In the weeks right before the ground invasion there were various Spec Ops and Intel guys in Iraq doing target location and plotting, working with the Kurds in Northern Iraq, trying to find Iraqis to fight on our side, and gathering intelligence on where the WMDs might be located.

O2- I don t know anyone who went in early, but I know guys who talked to some spooks who said they had been right in downtown Baghdad about a month before the ground assault. I can t verify that with any hard facts, but it was pretty openly known. We completely ignored some of the same international conventions that we said Iraq violated in 1990 when they invaded Kuwait. I find it very disturbing that we went to war over that in 1991, but then broke a whole bunch of the UN charters when we invaded Iraq.

O1- Let s get off this one, I wanted to talk about other things that have been bothering me. The border thing is done long ago; my guys are still dying today.

JS- Okay, let s move on to the recent casualties. While you were talking to me yesterday you mentioned opening up Christmas presents and seeing the news reports about the deaths on Christmas Eve. How hard is it to be home and know your fellow troops are still dying and getting maimed?

O1- I can t stop feeling like I shouldn t be back home. I left a whole lot of my men over there, and a few have been killed while I was home. That really makes you feel like sh.t, and you want to be there to get some payback or something. I wasn t even able to eat Christmas dinner because I lost my appetite after seeing the news. I came back home but many of my men will not be coming back, and some will be coming back horribly scarred and injured. Makes you really think about what Christmas means and to value being with your family.

O2- I started crying in front of my whole family and all my friends when I saw that come on the news. I won t let my wife turn on the news right now. I am going back in a few days and I want to just relax and forget the war for a few days. I don t think I can put it out of my head, but I am trying. I knew one of the guys killed on Christmas Eve, and some of the guys that got wounded in the last week were my friends. I hate being here and feeling helpless to do anything. I want to be there trying to lead my men safely on patrol, and make sure they can come home to see their families again.

JS- I m sorry if talking to me is making you think about all that stuff while you are trying to rest and be with your family.

O2- I want to talk about this and tell people how bad it really is in Iraq. It is a complete fu..ing slaughter and it is only going to get worse. The attacks in the last month or so have been meticulously well planned and executed. We are seeing a level of sophistication that the chain of command did not ever expect. Many of the officers knew that they were going to be dealing with well trained Iraqi army and militia units. There might or might not be outside support and insurgents, but I know the Iraqis are more than capable of messing up your day. These guys have been trained to fight guerilla style and they don t give up. We are in deep sh.t now that they have started to get more organized.

O1- I don t think that some of the higher level planners expected this kind of resistance and guerilla activity. We tried to tell them months ago that it wasn t just Ba ath party members and Saddam supporters. Some of the most highly trained guerillas are Shiite and Kurdish. We are going to be in some real trouble if the Kurds ever decide to join together with the Shiites and fight against us. Throw the Sunni radicals into the mix and it s total chaos with our guys stuck smack in the middle. It s one giant cluster f..k and the US soldiers are going to be the one that gets hurt and killed. That country is on the brink of civil war right now. Years of subdued hatreds are now boiling over. That is why you see all the different targets that are being hit by the car bombs.

O2- Yeah, we are in a real meat grinder right now. The real danger is that the whole country will erupt in civil unrest and the US troops will be caught between many different rival factions. I don t look forward to going back there, but I don t have a choice.

O1- You know, right after the invasion, the average Iraqi was happy to see us get rid of the Saddam regime. You ask the same Iraqi how they feel about us now, and they will openly admit that they hate us as bad as Saddam, or even worse than Saddam.

JS- Why is that in your opinion? What made them change their feelings toward US forces?

O1- You want to know the biggest reason? We still haven t accomplished the mission we started out to do. Iraqis will tell you they don t fell any freer, there is hunger all over the place, over half the country is out of work, there is a huge lack of clean drinking water, and their children are dying everyday from contaminated water, and from our cluster bombs. The people do not see us living up to our promises of liberation and democracy. Until we do what we promised them and get out of there, they will keep killing us and hating us. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Every American needs to ask themselves what they would do in the same situation. I guarantee you that they would not sit back and do nothing. They would want to fight back in whatever way possible.

O2- Good point! I get really mad when they kill or injure one of my men, but I have to examine why the attacks are happening. I am there to lead and protect my men, and that means I have to be aware of what is causing the attacks and what would stop them. I have asked many Iraqis what it will take to get the attacks to stop. They all tell me that the US needs to do what they said they would do, and leave them to run their own country. The majority of Iraqis believed that the US would come in, get rid of Saddam, and then go right back home. You and I both know that is not going to happen anytime soon. We are going to be there for at least another year or more in a very large force. There is no way that Bush and his cronies are going to give up all that oil and contracting dollars.

O1- Every day that we stay in Iraq, the resistance builds, and the attacks are bigger and more prevalent. We are going to see many more US soldiers die because of the failure of the US to live up to their basic promises. In the end it is the basic line grunt that is the victim of the Bush regimes drive for oil and profits. You won t see one of the senator s kids over there. You will not see one of the board members of Halliburton, Bechtel, KBR, or the other big contractors losing a son or daughter. All they are going to do is make money and send more troops to guard their convoys and assets.

We can t even go out in convoy with anyone from Halliburton or Bechtel without drawing a crowd of angry Iraqis. They hate the Halliburton and Bechtel guys worse than they hate the soldiers. It s like painting a target on your back just to travel with those contractors and try to protect them.

O2- Let me jump in here. I want to say that I am extremely mad that Halliburton and Bechtel have better equipment than our own troops do. The contractors have fully armored Hummers and the best body armor. The have us escort them in our lightly armored Humvees and they ride in heavily armored vehicles. That is bullsh.t and every American needs to know about it. It s been in the paper recently about how bad the casualties have been from the older Hummers. Our vehicles don t provide adequate protection, and that is a fu..ing outrage that needs to be fixed.

O1- I was getting to that, and it is a big problem. I think about 80 percent of my unit casualties were coming from the Humvee crews. Do you know that bullets go through an older hummer like it s made of paper? Most of the hummers have canvas tops and plastic windows. If an IED (improvised explosive device) hits you from the side, you are going to get hurt or killed if you are in an older, lightly armored hummer. The recent increase in the amount of roadside bombs has been decimating my men. Almost all my recent KIAs (killed in action) and WIAs (wounded in action) were riding in a hummer. I was there when the CNN guys riding in the hummer were injured. The attacker just chucked the grenade right through the top of the vehicle. Most of the hummers are not designed for heavy combat ops.

O2- I would say that at least half of my WIAs and KIAs were in a hummer when it got hit. I think that in the last few weeks before I left, the average was more like 70-80 percent. It was something I have begged my higher ups to take care of. I have not seen a significant response to the problem yet. Man, they sent us to war in what is basically an aluminum can with a canvas topper. How messed up is that? But of course Halliburton and the other private contractors have the best and newest vehicles and body armor.

O1- I saw some Saudi police or militia, I don t know which, that were brought in by Kellog Brown and Root to provide security for the oil fields. Those fu..ers had the body armor our own forces were supposed to get. Bechtel got a whole bunch of body armor given to them for the police force they are training. Our own Reservists and National Guard are using Gulf War era equipment and some supplies are even older than that. They are getting wiped out and needlessly wounded because they don t have the proper body armor and vehicles.

The contractors seem to be able to keep their security forces supplied with the newest and best gear. Some of the oil field security had brand new Humvees and other equipment the reserve units would kill for. There were a lot of the reservists lost because they didn t get sent over with the right flak jacket. Let America think about that one for a while.

Every American should demand a congressional injury about why our troops were not equipped with the proper equipment to save their lives. I know of at least 50 men that were killed because they did not have the newer body armor, and some didn t have any body armor at all. How the hell can the Pentagon justify sending a man into battle without body armor? That is like driving down the freeway at 100 without a windshield or doors.

JS- So beyond a shadow of a doubt, there were some of our troops that died because they just didn t have the right body armor or a properly armored Humvee? They actually sent units over with inadequate equipment or no equipment at all?

O1- Yes, absolutely without a doubt! In my mind there can be no mistake about it. Some of our soldiers, a large percentage even, died needlessly or were permanently disabled because there was improper or missing equipment.

O2- Are you kidding me? You are actually asking me if there is any doubt about it? I saw it with my own eyes and lost men because of it. I didn t have to know it was happening to another unit. That fact that it was happening to my men told me that. Some of the chemical protection suits were completely useless, and our vehicles were absolute pieces of shit. We were driving one hummer as a command unit and it had three bullet holes in one side. We reinforced the doors with whatever heavy scrap metal we could find. We were scavenging for sheet metal ourselves and competing with the Iraqis to see who could find the heavy gauge steel and aluminum first.

Yeah, they knew some of our units didn t have any of the proper equipment. How the hell could they not know, we told them enough and some of us wrote to Colonel David Hackworth about it. I know one guy in my unit who wrote one of the letters Hack put up back in October.

O1- So I guess you got the answer you were looking for right? At least make sure everyone finds out about this. I would hate to say all this stuff and then you don t do anything with it. I read the articles you wrote back in October. I thought they were bullsh.t at first, but I met a guy you talked to. I didn t think I would ever give an interview like this. A lot can change in a few months time.

Now I am just about done with the Army s bullsh.t and the Pentagon is about worthless as sh.t. It is going against everything the Army has ever told me. I am just sick of seeing good men and women die. In the end is it going to really mean anything that all these Americans shed their blood in the sand? I don t think most of America really knows how bad it is. We getting our asses kicked and no one is winning this thing.

O2- If you look at it really hard, the only ones that come out ahead are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of those corrupt old bastards. I mean come on, if all the soldiers who are actually fighting this war can see that, what the hell is wrong with the American citizens? We knew it was about oil from the beginning. Oil and building huge bases that the US will have to staff for years to come. There is no end in sight for the people serving in this war. How about us, don t we have a say in this?

JS- Let me ask you how you feel about serving in Iraq and being involved in the war.

O2- I m proud that I served my country, I am proud to be an American soldier. That is why it is so hard for me to say stuff like this about our leaders and the government. I hate doing this, but what the Pentagon and Bush are doing to our soldiers makes me sick. I also get sick when I think about how many Iraqi civilians I saw killed and terribly maimed. I have seen hundreds of kids missing body parts or dying from dysentery and diarrhea from contaminated water. I saw orphans who had lost every family member and were starving in the street.

There are whole packs of orphans roaming around Baghdad and some of the other cities. They scavenge for scraps and beg for food. It got really bad after the Red Cross and the UN pulled out. Seeing hundreds and hundreds of maimed and starving children is one sight you will never forget. I can t sleep sometimes, and I hear the kids crying in my nightmares. I saw little kids with injuries like I never dreamed possible.

I was near a hospital for a few weeks after the ground war ended. I saw hundreds of dead kids, and kids dying from gangrene and infection. If you ever smell someone who has severe gangrene and flesh rotting you would know what I was talking about. That is one smell you will never forget. To see a little child with their arm or leg rotting off is one of the most gruesome sights I could have imagined.

I never was prepared for anything like I experienced in Iraq. There is no way in hell that the Army can train you to be able to handle something like that. No amount of practice can even come close to the reality I found in Iraq. There just wasn t anything to prepare any of us who had never been in that kind of combat environment. I thought I had seen some really nasty sh.t in Bosnia and then in Kosovo. Boy was I ever wrong about that being as bad as it could get. I feel sorry for the newer guys who hadn t ever seen any combat, or ever shot at a real person.

Coming under fire was another thing that fu..ed up some of my guys who had never seen any action before. Some of them just froze and got shot because they just didn't have the proper training to react the right way.

I must have seen at least five hundred dead bodies, and those were just the ones you could see in plain sight. We could smell the ones that hadn t been found in the rubble, and there were bodies in some of the canals rotting for days or weeks. Some of those canals were downright ugly looking, and the smell was incredibly foul.

O1- I will never be ashamed of being in the Army or going to Iraq. I do hate some of the things that we had to do to stay alive, and sometimes it wasn t in any training manual or class you could take. I thought I knew what it would be like, and had some ideas about what I would do in certain circumstances. I had so many situations that we just are not trained to handle.

I was not prepared to have to be a police officer or a peacekeeper. I heard that over and over again from my men. They simply didn t know how to be in a police force capacity or know much about doing the urban peacekeeping patrols and standing checkpoint duty. I thought it was a joke when they kept referring to us as a peacekeeping force.

There is no way we were able to act effectively to keep the peace. It was all we could do to keep the patrol areas contained long enough to bring in enough reinforcements to get us out of trouble. We got shot at from rooftops, windows, and fields as we went by. Basically they attacked us from anyplace they could get off a shot or two.

I know that seeing the kids dead and injured was one of the worst things for me too. There just wasn t a damn thing you could really do. We didn t have a lot of food to spread around, and it was extremely hard for us to get clean water.

The madness and chaos that hit the whole country was completely overwhelming. I know a lot of my guys will come home with PTSD or worse. We had a lot of guys flown out for going off the deep end. You could just see it in their yes. They were right at the breaking point or already over the edge. I heard about million mile stares, and now I really know what they are talking about.

I am about done with this if you got what you need. You won t get me to say much else. I just wanted to get some of this stuff on record. I think that enough people will believe it that it might make some kind of difference. I just hope the people stop letting us die so senselessly. Let us get the job done and get the hell out.

I don t want to have to write another letter to parents or a wife ever again. I know that I will have to do way too much over the next couple months, or however long we are really over there. I just don t want to have to tell another mother that her son or daughter is dead or crippled for life.

Well so far we got rid of Saddam and the rest of his henchmen, and the attacks on our troops still keep happening. I don t see the insurgents or resistance backing down anytime soon. They are only going to fight harder the longer we stay.

What I want to say as my final statement to America is "Stop letting your proud men and women die so senselessly. If we are going to die for our country let it be for something we can really be proud of. I just don t see us making the US any safer from terrorists because of what we are doing in Iraq. Bring us back home so we can defend the US from real threats to our shores."

O2- Yeah, I pretty much agree with that. I am proud to serve my country and even die for it. I know the risks of putting on the uniform and accepting command. But damn it, if we are going to die, make it for something that really is helping to defend the US. I agree that we are dying senselessly for an idea of democracy in Iraq that the US government will never really let happen. I just want to be able to look back on my service with total pride and that is not really what I feel right now. I hate the ones in power that have made me question my sense of duty and honor. I get so confused about it and there is no one you can really talk to about that.

Don t let me have to ship anyone else s body back home. I don t want to get shipped back in a box either. I have a family and I don plan on being in the Army forever. I want to have my mind intact, and not wake up with nightmares about dead kids.

JS- One final question if you will permit it. The Pentagon has said that one in five soldiers will come back with PTSD, or some form of battle trauma. Is that about right or do you think there are going to be many more than that who are permanently affected by this war?

O1- I think it is probably affecting at least half the men over there. It s probably way more than that out of the ones in combat situations everyday. They have had to evacuate at least 5000 soldiers for mental reasons already. Who knows how many are having problems and are afraid to tell anyone. I know that I will never be the same again. I have nightmares and can t sleep very well. I know I won t ever forget some of the things I saw, there is no way you can ever wipe out the sight of dead kids and women, or seeing your men get slaughtered.

O2- Of course there are more soldiers with PTSD and mental problems than the military will ever admit too. Look how long it took for some of the Vietnam vets to get counseling and help for their mental problems. I do think it is affecting about half the troops in Iraq. It has to be affecting at least that many soldiers with as much combat as we have seen. I don t think I got that many problems with it, but I haven t had time to really stop and try to see how bad it has affected me. It had to affect me at least a little bit. I wouldn t be human if it hadn t scarred me a little. I feel sorry for the guys who don t feel anything at all. I hope this war never makes me stop feeling emotions like I did when I saw all those terrible things.

JS- I don t think you could have said it any plainer. Anything else you want to say?

O1- No, I think I said way too much if I know what s good for me. That is one thing that I am really upset about. I go off to fight for democracy and freedom in Iraq, and I am scared to have my name on this interview when I get back home to this supposed democracy. That just pisses me off that I am afraid to speak out in my own country. How the hell are we supposed to bring democracy to Iraq when the government is going after all the soldiers that have been speaking out?

O2- You have to have been out of the country for a few months to notice it. I almost felt like I was coming home to a police state or something. They were screening everyone at the airport and pulled aside some elderly guy who was a prominent anti-war activist. I didn t catch his name but a few people at the airport said he was a Christian peace missionary who had been over in Iraq during the bombing campaign.

What are we coming to when we harass old men who have the courage to challenge our notions of war? That was like a slap in the face to me when I saw how rude and nasty they were to this kind looking old man. He had the courage to stand up for what he believed in and that is why I am in the military. I took an oath to defend our liberties and to see them trampled on was insulting.

O1- I saw them screening several people when I came through, and it just pissed me off. These were very peaceful looking people and I heard one of them asking the security screeners what crime they had committed. He said all he had done was question the war and the facts behind it. One of the security goons said something like "You should have thought about that before you had the nerve to question the US. We don t like unpatriotic people in this country."

We are supposed to be fighting the war on terror against the terrorists, not the people who should have the right to stand against war if they want to. I hope that the country can see how dangerous it is getting to speak out against this current administration. I don t really think the war protesters are right on most of their issues, but I would fight to the death for their right and freedom to say it. I know a lot of guys who have had their family protest the war. What s gonna happen when they start arresting the soldiers families, or stop them from flying on a plane?

O2- I know that some of my family has spoken out against the war. If they were to try and arrest my mom or dad they would have a real fight on their hands. I don t think the government realizes how volatile something like that would be. How ironic it would be if I go back to Iraq to help them get a freely elected democracy, and they put my family in jail for trying to protect our own democracy? We are in real critical times right now. I don t think many of the military or their families actually support this war. I don t know of any other time of war when so many people with military family have spoken out in opposition of a war.

Some of the men in my unit have family members that go to all the protests, and are very active with anti war groups. Imagine if the FBI were to just start arresting all those people. That is a very real possibility if you look at the lengths the FBI and Homeland Security has gone to keep track of protestors and activists.

O1- I want to say one more thing to all the American people. I guess I just can t figure out when to shut my mouth.

WAKE UP! This war has become bogus if it ever had any legitimacy at all, and it is only when you speak out that you will hold our leaders accountable. Don t forget what this country was founded on. God Bless America! I hope that everyone listens to what I had to say. Don t just push my words off and go on about your daily routine. Ask yourself what could have been so bad that I would speak out like this. Ask yourself how bad it must be when I am willing to put my career on the line to speak out.

O2- Yeah, that about says it for me too. Just think about what could have possibly made me go out on a limb and do this interview. I am not ready to go back to Iraq and die, but I don t have much choice. I just want everyone who supports this war to think about this, and realize that it must be one hell of a mess to get us to say all this. I never would have thought I would be doing this type of interview. I would have laughed in your face a year ago if you told me it would happen.

JS- Thanks for your time and for having the courage to speak out. This will make a difference to the soldiers in Iraq and to all the families who are supporting them. You really are true heroes. I wish you and all the rest of our troops continued safety and that you come home as soon as possible.

Email- coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia@... 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia

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Join the Kerry drugwar thread!

http://forum.johnkerry.com//index.php?showtopic=525&st=0

From: crownofthorns@...

Interesting conversation and people in the last days  Welcome back
Rick and I guess welcome to the silent majority some of who unlurked
for a few messages

I would encourage everyone on this list who is in america to take a look
at this page. It's funny but not that funny because it happens to be
true.

http://www.studentsfororwell.org/

My question to the list and yes it is off topic from ibogaine directly
a little but so is much of what's here and it isn't that far off topic.
Dean is out of it, so who next? Is Kerry it?

We have these talks in the past, I support the greens not the dems but
I think that unfortunately we have a two party system and the greens,
 libs, medical marijuana party are never going to win anything all they
will do is fracture the vote and my most important vote and what I am
truly voting for more then anything is ANYTHING THAT GETS BUSH OUT OF
THE WHITEHOUSE.

I truly do not believe there are more of 'them' then of 'us' but in the
last election the liberal vote went into so many different directions
and the evil army won, with the help of 9-11 of course.

I'm voting democrat this time, the main issue that is of major importance
to me is what I said, anything that gets Bush out of the whitehouse.

Peace out,

Curtis

Denis Peron says he would vote for Attila the Hun to get rid of Bush. I told him Kerry is much better than that, potentially-- he was on the Capitol Steps with John Lennon protesting Vietnam. He investigated the Contra Coke connnection, Etc. Etc. What we have to do now is to engage the candidate and get a commitment for biomedical research into the iboga alkaloids asap. That means showing up at campaign rallies with IBOGAINE TESTING NOW banners & signs. ACT UP did with AIDS in 1992 and Bill Clinton became so used to them that he treated them as part of the campaign.

I encourage you to join the following list to inject ibo content.  I put it up on the list before with no comment, so few if any of you have checked it out.  http://forum.johnkerry.com//index.php?showtopic=525&st=0

Here are some of my entries--

What about Ibogaine? Why has there been no discussion of Ibogaine, when discovery of the first true broad-spectrum addiction interrupter obviously changes the whole drugwar calculus in favor of medical treatment versus imprisonment?

Dana/cnw

We've been fighting more than 30 years to get cannabis decriminalized. We're still fighthing to get that done.

I'd dare say that some on this forum have never even heard of Ibogaine.


And something tells me that the pharma corps don't care two hoots about any natural remedy for addiction.

They certainly haven't been honest where cannabis is concerned and it's been used for thousands of years for all types of ailments including addiction.


I don't know about the rest of you guys here but I think we're all preaching to the choir.

Perhaps it's time to take this discussion somewhere it will be taken seriously and where it will get some attention???

QUOTE

I'd dare say that some on this forum have never even heard of Ibogaine.

I confess..

QUOTE

Perhaps it's time to take this discussion somewhere it will be taken seriously and where it will get some attention???

you mean on this board or beyond?

I think WeedMan has some thoughts on that. Email him and let's see if we can get something started.

QUOTE (dana @ Feb 3 2004, 12:58 PM)

What about Ibogaine?

With the Campaign's stated interest in expanding treatment, Ibogaine deserves a close look. Alas, it's too new to most folks to be easily reduced to a Campaign soundbite.

Dana: besides posting here, try a personal approch. As I know you're in New York, I suggest you head tonight to


Results Watch Party:
Join Vanessa Kerry, Chris Heinz, and the NY Kerry Campaign we watch returns from seven states and cheer on our candidate!

7 p.m. at Chetty Red (28 East 23rd Street at Madison Avenue.)

RSVP to Liz Host at 212-213-0220 or host@...

We've been fighting more than 30 years to get cannabis decriminalized. We're still fighthing to get that done

.

I'd dare say that some on this forum have never even heard of Ibogaine.
[QUOTE]

It's amazing to me that drug reformers don't make more use of Ibogaine as their cutting edge issue--when most of the public is far more impressed with the fact that there is something like ibo out there than with boilerplate about how harmless cannabis is. I agree with the Dutch Model, but I don't see how we get from here to there without using ALL our ammunition, especially the fact that addiction to hard drugs can be cured with a simple procedure lasting several days (so that the so-called "gateway effect" is not such a big deal).

Ironically, Ibogaine itself happens to be an illegal drug (but only in the U.S. and 3 small European countries). So the drug reform movement should be trumpeting its existence--right? Could it be that the legalizers feel the Ibogaine information should be withheld because it will weaken their main arguments for legalization? Or that they're afraid the System will absorb a new treatment without relaxing the egregious severity of other aspects of the Drug War?

Or is the problem simply the Senate staffers who never let the John Kerry's of the world know about such inconveniently controversial alternatives?

Frankly, I don't see how such a medical breakthrough would not, a practical matter, change the whole emphasis away from prisons at home and armed intervention abroad. I mean, everyone knows the current approach is not working, and that the big fat hole in demand reduction is the lack of a real medical treatment other than methadone/buprenorphin (which don't do anything for cigarettes, coke, or methamphetamine anyway, unlike Ibogaine, which works for everything but valium and marijuana).

Dana Beal/ co-founder, CURES NOT WARS

If you're in need of medical marijuana then vote for Kerry. If your looking to end the drug war on the rest of us, then you better vote for Dennis Kucinich in your states primary.

Kerry will continue to do just what has been done under every president from Nixion to Bush II. Our only hope is to hold out and make him earn our vote until his platform includes some form of reform that is a move forward.

I disagree. In some of these races a few thousand votes are deciding the winner, so we will have more leverage if we approach Kerry now, when he needs help, rather than latter. On the other hand, asking him to come out for ending the drug war now is a nonstarter. That's why I think we should limit it to a research inititiative into the Iboga alkaloids and some form of amnesty for bona fide medical marijuana cases including the states where it is not (yet) legal. These are the "forms of reform" that would send a signal to my network, which is active in more than 140 U.S. cities and towns, that we can get involved because some one is actually listening.

 

3. This could be a very subtle nudge to try to get John (and/or others) to come out and support decrim up front.... hoping it would "derail or sidetrack" his firestorm on the primary trail.

This is of course the danger implicit in the reluctance of Kerry staffers and the campaign to do or say anything about the Drug War. OTO, how difficult can it be to advocate a medical cure that puts addiction into remission?

I believe, in order to promote and gain support in furthering this cause, we shouldn't be focusing merely on the use and/or abuse of Marijuana but, should focus our energy on the subject of STATES RIGHTS with regards to this issue.

This is the kind of conceptual dead-end you get into when you make legalization or decrim of cannabis the litmus test instead. It's not about drug policy choices any more.

One last thing, Al Gore did say those things about his sister, only to turn around and flip flop on the issue and say "it doesn't have any medical use."

And Howard Dean lost because he vetoed medical marijuana. This is the obverse of the mainstream reluctance to take on the drug war. The danger at the other extreme. I've been saying for some time Gore lost the election right there, because of the vast numbers of people I know who voted Green or Libertarian because they took that flipflop into account with Bush's lies about states rights. It's important to get some clear signs of change now that we can take back to our people so that this defection of 1% (estimated) of the electorate from the dems is not repeated in November, when the election will once again be very close.

The qestion is whether the movement to stop the drug war will be satisfied with development of iboga and general med-mar amnesty as sufficient evidence of a new direction, based on compassion for patients and providers and a genuine commitment to switch from coerced to bona fide medical treatment of addicts.

Dana Beal/cnw/MMM 2004

It's not at a "development' stage, but ready to go, with tangible immediate benefit to our economy, and the Statwide education is already done.

Wait a minute. Didn't John just get an "F" on hemp? At very least he avoided taking a postion. Funding biomedical development aimed at securing FDA approval for a medical breakthru in the treatment of addictions is another matter. John Kerry can appear with Stanley Glick, a NIDA scientist, and pledge to back his work on 18 MC, the safer semi-sythetic ibogaine developed by Albany Medical College, without ever a single drug reformer being in the picture.

18 Methoxycorinaridine, for those of you who are not familiar with the subject, is an Ibogaine analog without the sigma-2 or N-methyl-D-aspartate toxicities or elevated serotonin levels cited by NIDA as the basis for their continuing resistence to use of iboga alkaloids as a treatment.

To re-iterate-- these compunds are the first broad spectrum treatment that puts addictions into remission. Ibogaine is more effective for heroin, less so for crystal meth and cigarettes, least so for crack. 18-MC is twice as effective for cigarettes. I am certain further research will find the analogs that are most effective for crystal and crack. But 18-MC IS ready to go, when you consider that it would take four or five million to get it past the FDA. In the war on drugs, that's chump change.

Under Clinton, we urged the ONDCPD to retarget monies in the Federal Forfeiture Fund (which was then more than a Billion dollars) in to research into medical treatment. Instead we got Faith-based abstinence and religious mumbo jumbo. Treatment that doesn't work on 95% of addicts, so that the proponents of prisons always win the public safety argument. We need to rid the federal bureaucracy of those who have be opponents of true reform under both republicans and democrats.

Dana/cnw

The issue is not that there is no difference between Reno and Ashcroft. The issue is the marginalization of social change activists by mainstream democrats since Red Scare days and especially since 1968--the alienation of its own activist wing by the democratic party. It's hard to trust people when you don't feel accepted. I have yet to see any evidence, for instance, that anything written here has one iota of effect on the postions of the Kerry campaign. WHO DO WE TALK TO?

It is not just me saying this, and I think the syndrome applies to "single issue activists" across the board, as the following article clearly shows:

THE DEAD CENTER- By Robert B. Reich: "The dismal fifth place showing by senator Joseph Lieberman in the New Hampshire primaryon tuesday serves as both reminder and motivator to the other democratic presidiental candidates on what it will take to win in November. For so long now evryone has assumed that recapturing the presidency depend son who triumphs in the battle between liberals and moderates within the party. Such thinking, though, is inherently flawed. The real fight is between those who want only to win back the White House and those who also want to build a new political movement-one that rivals the conservative movement that has given Republicans their dominant position in American politics.

"Senator Lieberman's defeat on Tuesday could be a good indicator of which side is ahead. To their detriment, Mr.Lieberman and the perennially dour Democratic leadership council have been deeply wary of any hint of a progressive movement,referring instead an uninspired centrist message that echoes Republican themes.

"On the other extreme is Howard Dean who could be called the quintessential movement democrat. His campaign is both grassroots and reformists, is based on the proposition that ordinary people must be empowered to "Take back America." Similar threads can also be seen in the campaigns of senators John Edwards and John Kerry . (Full disclosure: I've been helping senator Kerry.) It was no accident afterlast week's caucuses in Iowa that a beaming senator Edwards told supporters they had "started a movement to change America."

"I hope that Mr. Edwards and the others will stay on message-and movement. After all, democrats have seen what the republican party has beenable toaccomplish over the years. The conservative movement has developed dedicated sources of money and legions of ground troops whonot only get out the vote, but also spend the time between elections persuading others to join their ranks. It has devised frames of reference that are used repeatedly in policy debates (Among them: It's your money, tax and spend, political correctness, class welfare).

"It has a system for recruiting and electing officials nationwide who share the same world view and who will vote accordingly. And it has a coherent ideology uniting evangelical Christians, blue-collar whites in the south and west and big businesses- an ideology in which foreign enemies, domestic poverty and crime, and homosexualityall must be met with strict punishment and religious orthodoxy.

"In contrast, the democratic party has had no analogous movement to animate it. Instead, every four years, party loyalists throw themselves behind a presidential candidate who they believe will deliver them from the rising conservative tide. After the election, they go back to whatever they were doing before. Other Democrats have involved themselves in single issue politics- the environment, campaign finance, the war in Iraq and so on - but these battles have failed to build a political movement.Issues rise and fall, depending on which interests are threatened and when. They can even divide Democrats, as each advocacy group scrambles after the same set of liberal donors and competes for the limited attention of the news media.

"As a result, Democrats have been undisciplined, intimidated, or just plain silent. They have few dedicated sources of money, and almost no ground troops. The religious left is disconnected from the political struggle. One hears few liberal Democratic phrases that are repeated with any regularity. In addition, there is no consistent democratic view or ideology. Most Congressional Democrats raise their own money, do their own polls, and vote every which way. Democrats have little or no clear identity except by reference to what conservatives say about them.

"Self-styled Democratic centrists, like those who inhabit the DemocraticLeadership Council, attribute the patry's difficulties to a failure to resond to an electorate grownmore coservative, upscale and suburban. This is nonsense. The iggest slossesfor Democrats since 1980 have not been among suburban voters t among America's giant middle and working classes -- especially white workers without four year college degrees, once part of the old Democratic base. Not incidentally, these are the same people who have lost the most economic ground over the last quarter-century.

"Democrats could have responded with bold plans on jobs, schools, health care and retirement security. The could have delivered a strong message about the responsibility of corporations to help their employees i all these respects and of wealthy elites not to corrupt politics with money. More recently, the party could have used the threat of terrorism to inspire the same sort of sacrifice and social solidarity as Democrats did in World War II-- including higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for what needs doing. In short, they could have turned themselves into a populist movement to take back democracy from increasingly concentrated wealth and power.

"But Democrats did none of this. So conservatives eagerly stepped into the void, claiming the populist mantle and blaming liberal elites for what's gone wrong with America. The question ahead is whether Democrats can claim it back. The rush by many Democrats in recent years to the so-called center has been a pathetic substitute for candid talk about what the nation needs to do and for fueling a movement based on liberal values. In truth, America has no consistent political center. Polls reflect little more than reflexive responses to what people have most recently heard about an issue. Meanwhile, the so-called center has continued to shift to the right because conservative Republicans stay put while Democrats keep meeting them halfway.

"Democrats who avoid movement politics point to Bill Clinton's success in repositioning the p arty in the center during the 1990's. Mr. Clinton was (and is) a remarkably gifted politician who accomplished something no Democrat since Franklin Delano Roosevelt had done -- getting re-elected. But his effect on the party was to blur rather than to clarify what Democrats stand for. As a result,Mr. Clinton neither started nor sustained anything that might be called a political movement.

"This handicapped his administration from the start. In 1994, when battling for his health care proposal, Mr. Clinton had no broad-based political movement behind him. Even though polls showed support among Anericans, it wasn't enough to overcome the conservative effort on the other side. George W. Bush got his tax cuts through Congress, even though Americans were ambivalent about them. President Bush had a political movement behind him that supplied the muscle he needed.

"In the months leading up to the 1996 election, Mr. Clinton famously triangulated -- finding positions equidistant between Democrats and Republicans -- and ran for re-election on tiny issues live V-chips in television sets and school uniforms. The strategy worked, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Had Mr. Clinton told Americans the truth -- that when the economic boom went bust we'd still have to face the challenges of a country concentrating more wealth and power in fewer hands -- he could have built a long-term mandate for change. By the late 90's the nation finally had the wherewithal to expand prosperity by investing in people, especially their education and health. But because Mr. Clinton was re-elected without any mandate, the nation was confused about what needed to be accomplished and easily distracted by conservative fulminations against a president who lied about sex.

"As we head into the next wave of primaries, the Democratic candidates should pay close attention to what Republicans have learned about winning elections. First, it is crucial to build a political movement that will endure after particular electoral contests. Second, in order for a presidency to be effective, it needs a movement that mobilizes Americans behind it. Finally, any political movement derives its durability from the clarity of its convictions than to hone them in political combat.

"A fierce battle for the White House may be exactly what the Democrats need to mobilize a movement behind them. It may also be what America needs to restore a two-party system of governance and a clear understanding of the choices we face as a nation."

This is from the NYTIMES op-ed, Thursday Jan 29.

 

Yah, Reich's got it right, Dana. Politicians and their advisers have to see "issues" as an OPPORTUNITY to state a coherent program and energize supporters, not a PROBLEM to be deflected or neturalized or avoided with a "play it safe" strategy.

The question remains: WHO IN THE CAMPAIGN DO WE TALK TO? Rand Beers? I'd like to get some indication from the Moderators that it's NOT Beers. The name and phone number of anyone else would do.

Dana/cnw

P.S: Beers is a holdover from the Clinton ONDCP and the 1st Bush administration who typifies the kind of folks who blocked ibo--and is now working for Kerry as some kind of advisor. He set of an internet firestorm by alleging that FARC guerillas trained in  Al Quaeda camps in Afghanistan.

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