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Watching MSNBC’s coverage of ‘the last combat troops leaving Iraq’ for 3 hours reminded of a few brutal realities that still plague this country and this planet. The first being just how far this country remains from any semblance of reality. It’s the kind of delusional denial that truly can only be believed when witnessed from within. As Keith Olbermann was describing the cinematic quality of the “Strykers driving into your living room,” I could really think of only one thing – The aftermath of a 7.5 year all out United States operation to decimate a people and their society.

There’s no way to comprehend the scope and facets of this operation, because you would need a Pentagon for that. From the first day after initial conquest when the money disappeared from the banks and their record of civilization was decimated by the looting of their museums, it was like any other colonial conquest in history, except every excruciating moment of this one was on television. The following 7.5 years of the assimilation of a country went as diagrammed.

This is it. We have only days to save an innocent man's life. Yesterday, the Ohio Parole Board made a nonbinding, advisory recommendation to Governor Strickland that Kevin Keith should be executed, but the Parole Board's own findings do not erase the doubt about Mr. Keith's guilt. We need you and your friends - especially people living in Ohio - to urge Governor Strickland to spare his life, when so many questions about his case remain unanswered.

Thanks to you, more than 20,000 petition signatures have been delivered to Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, asking him to save Kevin Keith. But that is not enough. Now, with Mr. Keith's scheduled execution less than one month away, it's time to turn up the volume and make our voices heard.

Please send a letter to Governor Strickland today asking him to grant clemency to Mr. Keith, who is scheduled to be executed on September 15, despite new evidence of his innocence.

The Department of Homeland Security says this is a motto for patriots, which is what I’ve always tried to be. After a lot of looking, I’m saying something.

I saw a large airplane crash into the South Tower, Building Two, of the World Trade Center—on television, live, at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001. Knowing that a large aircraft had flown into the North Tower a few minutes earlier, it was obvious that both crashes were intentional. I said: “They’d better be on their toes in Washington.”

Later I learned that people in the Pentagon who had TV sets also said something, namely “We’re next.” And they were. In about half an hour, 125 of them were dead at their desks. They trusted their superiors, as patriots tend to do, and they got double-crossed.

Let me tell you the story.

It’s already history. In mid-August 2010, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan launched a huge media campaign to prevent any substantial withdrawal of military forces the next summer.

The morning after Gen. David Petraeus appeared in a Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to promote the war effort, the New York Times front-paged news of its own interview with him -- reporting that the general “suggested that he would resist any large-scale or rapid withdrawal of American forces.”

In fact, the general signaled that he might oppose any reduction of U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan a year from now. During the NBC interview, the Times noted, “Petraeus even appeared to leave open the possibility that he would recommend against any withdrawal of American forces next summer.”

If the United States is not kaput it is certainly withering away even as a rich upper class enjoys all the things that money buys. There is massive, widespread economic pain inflicting a huge fraction of Americans who are unemployed, underemployed, relying on food stamps, losing their homes, and who are feeling totally insecure financially. This maintains sluggish consumer spending that makes necessary economic growth impossible.

The corporate bigwigs meanwhile are essentially using economic blackmail as they sit on trillions of dollars in cash, refusing to invest their capital and making great profits because they have cut workers and increased productivity. They want even more benefits from government that they think Republicans will give them.

No wonder that only 11 percent of people have confidence in Congress and most Americans are fed up with both major political parties. It is bewildering why more Americans are not openly condemning President Obama and his administration. Perhaps because there is no clear Republican that warrants support to replace him.

The teaser in Thursday, August 12th's Dispatch proclaimed "Diebold deal helps counties." It should have read "Diebold settles lawsuits by offering free and discounted shoddy election hardware and software."

This is the equivalent of the Ford Motor Company settling the lawsuit against its incredible exploding Pintos by offering the dead driver's family free leases and discounts to buy cars that blow up.

So, Diebold gets caught not counting people's votes – the solution: allow them to destroy democracy on a grander scale.

In the bizarre settlement, more than half of Ohio's county boards of elections will receive free and discounted voting machines and software from Premier Election Solutions (formally Diebold). This is a result of an August 2008 lawsuit against Diebold by Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. In the counterclaim filed by Brunner, she alleged that Diebold voting equipment "dropped votes in at least 11 counties." The failure to count votes occurred when Diebold memory cards were uploaded to computer servers.

NBC’s David Gregory just interviewed General Petraeus on Meet the Press, and he totally failed to ask the tough questions about the Afghanistan War. Instead, he gave Petraeus a platform to claim we’re “making progress,” a well-worn message aimed at convincing elites to ignore the massive public opposition to extending the war. If the rest of the media fail to ask hard questions during Petraeus’ upcoming media tour, there’s a chance he could get what he wants: the freedom to extend this brutal, futile war.

Sign our

petition to tell the next journalists on Petraeus' media tour to ask tough questions and expose his effort to extend the Afghanistan War.

CBS’ Katie Couric, FOX News’ Jennifer Griffin, and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos are in line to talk to the general. Since Couric is next, we’ll start with her. Tell her to ask tough questions about Petraeus' claims of "progress" and his attempt to extend the Afghanistan War.

More than 106, 000 viewers reveled in the exotic, interesting, unique, and independent films presented by Michael Moore and the Traverse City Film Festival in 2010! Besides such wonderful films as NOWHERE BOY (the story of John Lennon’s coming of age as a teenage rocker maverick); THE INFIDEL ( the hilarious comic presentation of a Muslim family man who discovers his biological Jewish roots from adoption records); and THE IRANIAN COOKBOOK ( a documentary which reveals the constant cooking of the Iranian mothers and wives for Ramadan), film viewers were transfixed by the magic of the filmmaking world, its directors, writers, and performers.

In July 1967, I met Lee Lockwood at the Mexico City ticket counter of Cubana de Aviacion. He had black curly hair, a confident almost smug look and he toted camera bags. “I loved your book, the best, most honest book on Cuba,” (Castro’s Cuba; Cuba’s Fidel which he later updated) I told him. “Brilliant photos,” which he had taken for Life Magazine. “Thanks,” he snorted.

He had recently returned from Hanoi. He told me he’d run into the street just before U.S. planes bombed to get shots of Vietnamese civilians heading for air raid shelters – man hole covers. (“North Vietnam Under Siege,” Life Magazine, April 7, 1967)

Lee had another assignment from Life and I, with Richard Moore and Irving Saraf, had a contract for a public television film on Cuba (Report from Cuba).

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