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Volume 10 Issue 16…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…April
20, 2007
Intuit's Vibe
The Butterfly
By John Burl Smith
The butterfly said it was going to be alright!
It spoke in unguarded tones.
Willing hearts do fly free.
I was once a grub like thee.
The greatest struggle is always within.
There in the chrysalis you are what life was.
No more what you thought life made you.
Now something strange and unfamiliar is growing too.
The butterfly said it was going to be alright!
It flapped its wings saying of its action.
That is what I feared that day
when pain took my thoughts away.
As you, once despaired
over what was happening caused me a fray.
Overpowering at times I am sure.
The mind is only capable
of grasping the possibilities imagined.
The vision of focus is not tomorrow but today.
Whatever becomes must be composed of your clay.
The butterfly said it was going to be alright!
It flashed a rainbow of color
from its beautiful black wings.
Here take this inspiration to paint your world.
It is your radiance and brilliance
when you emerge from your shell.
Know that fear grips tightly
while struggle amplifies pain.
A condition of life that is our mortal coil not a stain.
We must feel to know we are real.
Your wings with strength
the spread will lift you above the dread.
This is what the butterfly said of this time.
The family of grubs left behind
will not know you are fine.
Appearing at this off season a warmer month
usually bids bonjour, comment allez-vous.
The chrysalis awaits all grubs,
a butterfly I know the reality
for me is the same for you.
Buying the War
"Iraq is part of a war on terror. It's a country that trains
terrorists. It's a country that can arm terrorists. Saddam Hussein and his
weapons are a direct threat to this country." George W. Bush
Buying the War is a must see documentary by Bill Moyers that examines how the
Bush administration, with media complicity, used lies, fear and propaganda to
sell the war against Iraq. According to David Swanson, who has previewed the
documentary, "The claims that the White House made were not honest
mistakes. But neither were they deceptions. They were transparent and laughably
absurd falsehoods. And they were high crimes and misdemeanors."
Moyers interviews key media players, including Dan Rather, formerly of CBS, Tim
Russert of Meet the Press, and Walter Isaacson, former president of CNN, that
did not question the administration's case for war. In contrast to the media
cheering section, Moyers interviews Bob Simon of 60 Minutes, who was based in
the Middle East, and John Walcott and Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder
newspapers on their investigative efforts to determine whether there was any
evidence to support Bush's case for war.
Every citizen in this country is responsible for the carnage in Iraq. It is our
duty to know the facts and work to correct this situation. A good place to
start is a look back with "Buying the War." The PBS website at www.pbs.org lists the program's air date as Wednesday,
April 25, 2007 at 9 PM. Viewers are advised to check local listings for the
date and time in their broadcast area. PBS Channel 8, which covers the metro
Atlanta area, will air the program on Sunday, April 29, 2007 at 2:30 PM. Check
your local listing and mark your calendar.
United States
Electoral College
According to Article II, Section 1, Clause II of the Constitution, "Each
state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a
number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives
to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or
Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United
States, shall be appointed an elector."
Not an academic institution, Electoral College refers to the indirect process
established by the Founding Fathers to elect the US President and Vice
President. In fact, the nation's founders wanted to avoid majority rule. Thus,
under the original US Constitution, only members of the House of
Representatives were directly elected by the people, i.e., white male property
owners. Members of the Senate were chosen by state legislatures, the President
by electors, and the judiciary by the President and the Senate. For the
Founding Fathers, the system of electors diluted the votes of large states,
allowed the incorporation of the three-fifths compromise into the process of
choosing the nation's chief executive and ended the large-small and free-slave
controversy over representation.
In the original Constitution, only the term "electors" appears.
Electoral College, the name given to the group of presidential electors that
are chosen every four years by popular vote in each state on Election Day, came
into general usage in the early 1800s and was first written into Federal law in
1845. Electors cast the official votes for President and Vice President. Today,
the term appears in 3 U.S.C. § 4. The Electoral College is administered at the
national level by the National Archives and Records Administration via its
Office of the Federal Register.
The electoral process was modified in 1804 with the ratification of the 12th
Amendment and again in 1961 with the ratification of the 23rd Amendment, which
allocated to the District of Columbia as many electors as it would have if it
were a state, except that it cannot have more than the least populous state.
The least populous state (currently Wyoming) has 3 electors.
Since the election of 1964, the size of the electoral college has been set at
538, which is equal to the 100 Senators, 435 Representatives and 3 electors
allocated to the District of Columbia. A candidate must receive a majority of
electoral college votes to win the presidency. If no one receives a majority,
the election is determined by Congress (the House for presidential candidates,
the Senate for vice presidential candidates). The House of Representatives has
elected the President on two occasions, in 1801 and in 1825. The Senate has
chosen the Vice President once, in 1837.
Under the current system, the vote of an individual living in a state with
three electoral votes is proportionally more influential than the vote of an
individual living in a state with a large number of electoral votes. While the
popular vote is calculated, it does not determine the winner of the election.
In the elections of 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000, the candidate who received the
popular vote did not become president. Of these four national elections, only
the 1824 election was decided by Congress. In the case of Rutherford B. Hays
(1876) and Benjamin Harrison (1888) both lost the popular vote but won in the
electoral college. Violence and fraud prevented many blacks and white
Republicans from voting in Southern states in these elections. In 2000, George
W. Bush received a majority of electoral college votes after the Supreme Court
stopped the Florida vote recount.
The college is usually made up of party regulars whose candidate wins each
state. (Sources: Encyclopedia Americana and http://en.wikipedia.org/)
Disgruntled wants to know:
Reporting from Baghdad, CNN's Kera Phillips revealed another tragic side of
the illegal war and occupation of that sovereign country. For pennies a pill,
all kinds of prescription medication is available to citizens of this troubled
nation, even psychotropic drugs without prescriptions. While we may not know
for years to come all the kinds of drugs the Columbine killers were out of
their minds on, hints that the Virginia Tech suicide killer was on some kind of
prescribed psycho medication should come as no surprise. Question is, by
allowing the free flow of these kinds of drugs in Iraq, is the US aiding and
abetting suicide attacks?
Disgruntled feels:
Obscene! While the various presidential candidates are being praised for their
prowess at raising money, the obscene sums amassed do not restore confidence in
the electoral process. To the contrary, all this money shows the rich will
still control this government, regardless of the candidate that
"wins" in November 2008. This is the best government money can buy!
It is obscene, a real tragedy. To call it a democracy, even a representative
one, does the term a disservice.
Disgruntled says:
In taking its hard turn to the right, the Bush administration is being credited
with trashing the Department of Justice, especially the Civil Rights Division.
Morale is at an all-time low, especially among career DOJ employees, as inexperienced
Bush political appointees have disregarded past practices, eschewed the rule of
law and demonstrated more interest in achieving a narrow political agenda than
meting out justice.
No Democracy in DC
On Monday (4-16-07), thousands of District of Columbia (DC) residents
celebrated Emancipation Day by marching in support of the DC Voting Rights Act,
which if passed by Congress and signed into law by the president will give the
district voting representation in Congress. At present, its more than 500,000
residents are represented in Congress by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D),
who can cast votes in committee, but cannot vote on measures on the House
floor.
In effect, residents of majority black Washington, DC, the nation's capitol,
pay taxes, but do not enjoy voting representation in the legislative body that
decides important national issues of life and death. On more than one occasion,
Delegate Norton has said she believes race is the basis for the Congress'
historic denial of full representation in Congress for DC residents.
A number of organizations, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights,
DC For Democracy, People For the American Way, Common Cause, NOW, League of
Women Voters and MoveOn.org, helped organize this march. Marchers gathered at
Freedom Plaza; braving a cold drizzle and winds of up to 60 miles per hour,
they marched to the Capitol Reflecting Pool, where a rally was held. Speakers,
including DC Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, members of Congress and civil rights
leaders, highlighted the hypocrisy of US efforts to export democracy abroad
while denying more than half a million DC residents congressional
representation.
The DC voting rights bill before Congress would
treat DC much like a small state with two US Senators and one US
Representative. It would also give Utah an additional seat in the House,
bringing the total number of Electoral College votes to 539. On Thursday, the
measure is scheduled to come to the House floor for a vote; it is expected to
pass.
Ending Electoral College
The Electoral College is antithetical to the concept of one-person, one-vote
democracy. Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley signed into law a bill that makes
Maryland the first state to pass a measure that could effectively end the
electoral college. The interstate compact bill allows the state to cast its
electoral votes for the presidential candidate that wins the national popular
vote. Before the law goes into effect, enough states to comprise a majority of
the electoral college votes (270) must pass similar measures.
The bill's sponsor, Maryland state Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat and
constitutional law professor at American University, noted, "The electoral
college is intertwined with slavery. It worked like a dream for the slave
owners, because each slave, which was denied citizenship and voting rights,
counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning House seats.
And that increased a slave state's electoral votes." Indeed, according to
Sen. Raskin, the current winner-take-all system, in which the candidate who
wins a majority of a state's citizen's votes wins every one of its electoral
votes, evolved as states, particularly slave states, vied for power leading up
to the Civil War.
To the dismay of many Californians, last fall, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R)
vetoed an identical bill. In general, Republicans oppose ending the electoral
college, which dilutes the votes of big population centers that tend to favor
Democrats. The Hawaii Legislature last week voted to join the interstate
compact; Republican Gov. Linda Lingle has not signed the measure.
The popular vote concept enjoys broad-based appeal. More states are expected to
entertain similar legislation in the lead up to the national election.
Where Have All the Leaders Gone? (Excerpt)
By Lee Iacocca with
Catherine Whitney
Had Enough? Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's
happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder.
We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a
cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean
up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad,
everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay
the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America,
not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!
You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I
have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The
President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution,
tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to
record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't
need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in
handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody
seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking
hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled
across the ocean for.
I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself
a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to
have. My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two
years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to, as soon as I
can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay
attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people
will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll
tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping
to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they
don't trust politicians to represent their interests.
Hey, America, wake up! These guys work for us. Who Are These Guys, Anyway? Why
are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we
voted for them, or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't
do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking
questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who
call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a
democracy. And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or
liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the
reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people.
We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.
Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand
taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What
happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time
in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want
to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Telephone Calls
Email www.orlandosentinel.com
...Thousands of felons to regain civil rights...by Jason Garcia and Maya
Bell...In what supporters called a historic change, Gov. Charlie Crist and the
state clemency board agreed Thursday to restore voting rights to hundreds of
thousands of felons. The decision overhauls Florida's Reconstruction-era laws
stripping felons of their civil rights. Florida had been one of three states to
permanently revoke civil rights from felons, and the law became a issue after
the botched 2000 presidential election. Today, there are as many as 950,000 felons
in Florida, according to one recent estimate, though state officials Thursday
put the figure at 628,000.
Email www.legitgov.org...Articles of Impeachment
to Be Filed On Cheney... By Mary Ann Akers...Rep. Dennis Kucinich...declared in
a letter to his Democratic colleagues that he plans to file articles of
impeachment against Dick Cheney...Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution
gives Congress the authority to impeach the president, vice president and
"all civil Officers of the United States" for "treason, bribery,
or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Email www.presstv.ir ...Blix: US must halt own
nuke program...The head of the UN Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, Hans
Blix, has said that the US should stop proliferating nuclear weapons. At a
ceremony in Madrid for the release of his book titled "Weapons of
Terror" Blix said that if the US genuinely wants to prevent the
proliferation of other nation's nuclear programs, it should present itself as a
role model and "completely" halt the development of its nuclear arms.
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