Gravel on Gordon Kromberg

All I have to go on is the FOX selected quote. Actually, all I have to go on is the crusading, "terror-slut" Steve Emerson's  Investigative Project on Terrorism's selected quote.

So I'm free to make up my own context. Just as the "terror slut" did and fed to the greedy FOX. 

I can imagine a dialog like the following:

<quote cut from whole cloth>

"crowdmember in Washington, D.C" : What Gordon Kromberg has done is outrageous and criminal! We have to do somehting, we have to use his own tactics against him to bring him down!

Mike Gravel (smiling, he's heard it so many times before) : OK. “Find out where he lives, find out where his kids go to school, find out where his office is, picket him all the time. Call him a racist in signs if you see him. Call him an injustice. Call him whatever you want to call him, but in his face all the time.” In my judgement it's not going to work. "How do you deal with this kind of an injustice? I wouldn’t protest. I don’t believe in protesting. I think it demonstrates the failure of representative government. My answer to that problem is, I want to empower you as a lawmaker. … Don’t rely on your elected officials,"

Because you can't rely on them. You can't move them with protests. You must take back the sovereign power you have surrendered to them and straighten things out yourself.

When it comes to "national security" matters, to labeling a whole people as terrorists because you want their land, their water, I say let the people decide. And I have faith that We the People are not interested in demonizing a whole people, that We the People are not cowering in fear of anyone, that We the People will choose to live and let live and renounce the only terrorism over which we have any control and that is the terrorism carried out by our own government.

All around the world, wherever the people have the courage to stand up to US corporate imperialism, "our" government commits terrorism, which incites terrorism against us, which is then used to justify the original terrorism on our government's part, which brought about the reaction to it.

</quote cut from whole cloth>

I realize that I've made up my own context, just as FOX and the "terror-slut" have theirs. But I'll bet dollars to donuts mine is closer to the truth.

As for voting for evil, as you intend to do, Manuel Garcia Jr. has a nice little essay On Voting this morning :

"...it is illogical for me to vote for either John McCain or Barack Obama. With either one I get more war, and I will never again vote for war. Ralph Nader is my logical choice for president because he advocates what I want (Cindy Sheehan would be my choice for congress if I lived in Nancy Pelosi's district).

Objectively, I realize that Ralph Nader will not win the election. So, is my vote wasted? Since it is my vote and I prefer to apply it to the support of the people who carry on the platform of ideas I would wish this nation to adopt, no.

I understand how presumptuous Democrats may wish to commandeer my vote, with the excuse that as a leftist I should be a captive of their party, and vote for O'Clinton to spite McBush. They will wail that my vote for Nader is a wasted vote, perhaps even contributing to a Republican victory.

But, I repeat, I will never again vote for war, and I will never again endorse the empire. I don't care if I'm the only person in the country who votes against the empire. That will never be a wasted vote. "I'd rather vote for what I want and not get it, than vote for what I don't want and get lots of it."

If I can do this, then so can you, and so could a majority of US voters, once they wake up."

You don't like Ralph? Write in Mike Gravel. A vote for JMcC/BO is a War Crime.

And friends don't let friends commit War Crimes.

--

Times have changed. We are going to empower the American people. Let’s work together. I am tough. I’m not afraid. None of this politics as usual. Mike Gravel

The Ongoing Persecution of Sami al-Arian

 By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Efforts to free Sami al-Arian have now reached the U.S. Supreme Court. On July 30 an appeal was lodged with the Court by his attorneys, led by Professor Jonathan Turley.

There are few prospects in the justice system so grimly awful as when the feds decide never to let go. Rebuffed in their persecutions of some target by juries, or by contrary judges, they shift ground, betray solemn agreements, dream up new stratagems to exhaust their victims, drive them into bankruptcy, despair and even suicide. They have all the money and all the time in the world.

Is this what Mike is going to face when the FBI charges him with stalking?

You know its not likely unless Gravels' status takes a  big swing in the upward direction - but what is so true about it all is downright depressing - and Bush's legacy lives on and on and on because the Feds can smell a free luch a mile away. I am so beyond pissed it doesn't matter - it just keeps going on and on -and nothing except twisted notions by the minions and their slave masters mean anything. WTF

Do I have to close my mind to everything like most do to keep my sanity.

I applaud Gravel for bring national exposure to a topic that the American people would most likely never know about.  People claim that Gravel went too far, ask yourself how far would you go if one of your family members was being detained illegally, is goin over board really defined by picketing where someoneones children attend school?  Were talking about a illegal imprisonment, this should not be taken lightly.  Personally I would'nt ever protest or picket for the following reasons.  For one your assuming the role of a begger and not a participant in the system that you live in. Second your relying on the ones who make the laws to somehow "see the light" or the "errors of thier ways" feel some sort of compassion and change there mind of how things are done.  If they have the mentality to illegaly imprison someone I highly doubt they have any morals what so ever.

I been considering voting for McCain, not because I like him or believe in the things that he does, but I have grown bitter from people turning a blind eye to the problems that are going on around us conserning America.  Everyone wants the superficial bandaid perhaps what America really needs is a president who will make us hit rock bottom before we can no longer hide or head in the sand and pretend our problems do not exist because they do not effect us.