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feature: Saying No to War

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Past work experience:

• Ran for congress and lost.
• Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas, company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
• With fathers help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
• Accomplishments: Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union. Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money. Set record for most executions by any Governor in American history.
• Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my fathers appointments to the Supreme Court.

• Attacked and took over two countries (to date.)
• Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
• Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
• First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
• First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
• First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
• Set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.
• In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
• Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.
• Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
• Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
• Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in US history.
• Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
• Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
• Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
• Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
• Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
• My presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.
• Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (the 'poorest' multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice has an Chevron oil tanker named after her).
• First president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
• First president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
• Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.
• First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.
• First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.
• Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
• Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
• Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
• Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
• First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US elections).
• All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
• First US president to establish a secret shadow government.
• Took the biggest world sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
• First US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
• Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
• Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
• Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'.
• Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capitol building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.
• In the 18 months following the 911 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
• Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history.
• Entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.

• At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
• AWOL from National Guard and Deserted the military during a time of war.
• Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
• All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my fathers library, sealed in secrecy and un-available for public view.
• All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and un-available for public view.
• All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and un-available for public view.
• Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and un-available for public review.
• For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (They can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.)

Protests against this war have taken many forms. A few dozen activists, including Inlet.org's co-founder Wade Hudson, have gone to Iraq to be with the Iraqi people to let them know in person that American civilians are not their enemy. Other forms of protest have included marches, rallies, vigils, sit-ins, walkouts, using naked bodies to spell "Peace" and "No War" and form nude peace symbols, hunger strikes, boycotts, acceptance speeches, writing, leafleting, poetry, song, theatre, painting, advertising, lobbying, editorializing, cartooning, culture jamming and, the much more extreme forms of vandalism, rioting and even suicide. Voices saying no to this war include churches and ashrams, mosques and temples, liberals and conservatives, peace activists and retired four star generals, cab drivers and former presidents, students and celebrities, engineers and artists, soccer moms and anarchists, hippies and yuppies, U.S. veterans of four previous wars and pardoned draft dodgers, poor folks and rich people, city councils and labor unions, lawyers and grandparents, students and retired intelligence officers, and the majority of governments of the countries of this world. [more embedded links coming soon]

Once the bombing began the demonstrations began to swell into planned and spontaneous civil disobedience. Corporate broadcast media outlets in the US mention these protests only in passing. When they do mention demonstrations the reports focus on violence and arrests, downplaying and misrepresenting the size of the protests and rarely if ever mentioning how many US cities are besieged with civil disobedience. Their reports give equal time to pro-war demonstrators and represent these tiny, sproradic groups as if they matched the magnitude and frequency of national and global anti-war demonstrations.

Rarely will US corporate media give even a nod to the massive protests in europe, asia and the mideast, and the only overseas demonstrations they do mention are those which involve violence. Worse, the reporters faces and voices are, more often than not, tinged with disdain when reporting protests, and sometimes stoop to outright ridicule. It's as if the corporate media is unaware that the democratic right to express dissent is the primary freedom which Bush claims to be defending with his unjust war.

U.S. corporate media has thus far utterly ignored the reality that this war is both unconstitutional and illegal under international law.

During the Vietnam War there were a few better-known organizations who were percieved as the leaders of mobilization against war, and here in the onset of the twenty-first century that aspect of the movement remains the same. In the U.S. the most visible organizations mobilizing people against the war on Iraq and related injustices have been United for Peace, Not in Our Name, Move On/Win without War, International A.N.S.W.E.R., Peace Action, Student Peace Action Network, Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Code Pink and September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. Just as during the Vietnam War, there are hundreds of local area groups and dozens more national groups who combine their efforts with actions organized by the larger groups. There are also, of course, organizations opposing this war all over the world.

Here are links to pages on a few sites which list national and international organizations opposing the War on Iraq and war in general:

• United for Peace see right-hand column
• The Guardian
• ZNet