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The New Face of Apartheid: J. Kenneth Hackwell

The most unprincipled and opportunistic man in the history of Ohio, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, stands poised to claim the Republican primary for governor. Blackwell and his far-right theocratic “rapture-ready” Christian dominionists will doom the Buckeye State to further despair.

It should come as no surprise that the Free Press is the only newspaper in Ohio willing to out Blackwell for appearing before white supremacists in the secretive Council on National Policy. Blackwell understands power; he understands that there’s plenty of money in putting a black face on the new politics of high-tech Jim Crow. Blackwell also understands that in order for his strategy to succeed, he must convince a significant number of black ministers to join him in his open bigotry against gays and lesbians.
This is simply the old apartheid politics of divide and conquer. Blackwell wants to rule the new Buckeye State Bantustan.

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Is the Mainstream Media Finally Getting Half the Rigged Voting Machine Story?

The fact that electronic voting machines don’t work may finally be sinking into a segment of the mainstream media. The fact that e-voting machines can, have been, and will be used to steal elections, continues to go unreported.

At least the corporate media has moved from framing the allegations of e-voting fraud as “conspiracy theory” into reporting epic errors in election results.

Both USA Today and the New York Times have run recent articles on the mechanical problems surrounding electronic voting that mirror much of what happened during the theft the presidential election in Ohio 2004. Read more

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How We Can Best Defend Our Nation

Our great nation is at a crossroads and we the people must move quickly and creatively to avert catastrophe and defend the national security of our country. On the third anniversary of the unconscionable and illegal attack on Iraq, we must confront the president and his small circle of sycophants. The Bush regime lacks the competence, vision, wisdom and moral compass to lead America. The case is clear. Read more

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Peace is Patriotic

As the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaches this weekend, I support the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.

The Iraq invasion is a stain on the integrity of the United States. It is an illegal and immoral war based on perhaps the most well-known lie in the world. That Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It is now being justified by an even more ridiculous lie that we are there to bring democracy to Iraq.

Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorist network responsible for 9/11 are arch enemies of Saddam Hussein. Osama is a pan-Islamic fundamentalist seeking to create a greater Islamic empire. Saddam is a secular pan-Arab nationalist seeking a United States of Arabia.

Now, with the publishing of the Downing Street memos, we know that Bush and Cheney deliberately lied us into war. This violates not only the UN Charter, but the principles we established at Nuremberg. If we are to regain our integrity as a nation, we must seek the impeachment of our president. Read more

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Restoring Democracy in Ohio

As a former international election observer, who co-wrote and edited the 1994 report delivered to the United Nations on the first democratic elections since the peace accords in El Salvador, I saw far worse abuses of the election process in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election than I witnessed in Suchitoto, El Salvador.

The elections in Ohio, run by the highly partisan J. Kenneth Blackwell, Co-Chair of the Bush-Cheney Re-Election Campaign, aided by private partisan voting machine companies that use secret proprietary software, did not meet the minimum international standards for nonpartisanship and transparency. Blackwell banned international observers from Ohio polling stations and threatened them with arrest. He allowed Republican-dominated rural counties to avoid posting the election results at the precinct level and, instead, allowed them to be counted at the county level by suspect central tabulators.

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Ending Corruption: Why Ohio Needs an Independent Green Governor

Only an independent governor associated with a third party movement can root out the fraud and make the rules fair for everyone in Ohio. The wealthy own the Republican Party, and they lease the Democratic Party as needed. The Democratic Party which controlled Ohio in the 1980s did little to rein in special interests and bring clean money into the process.

The Republican Party, which has always been better at corruption than the Democrats, has allowed the state to be systematically looted for political purposes. There’s always an ongoing battle in a democracy between the people’s interests and the wealthy few. Between democracy and oligarchy.

In the case of the Ohio Republicans, the few they want to rule are the rich. The ancient Greeks called this plutocracy. But under Republican governors George Voinovich and Bob Taft, the usual evils of unleased plutocracy have transformed into open kleptocracy — rule by thieves.

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Going Green in Ohio

The key green slogan is: Think Globally — Act Locally. It is imperative that Ohio go green, not only for the good of our small planet but to revitalize the Buckeye State economy. As Governor, I would set an immediate goal to have 20% of all energy be green energy within my first term. This would not be difficult to do.

With research institutions like Battelle which have the capacity to produce green technology, and with our world-class universities and colleges, we could move easily away from fossil fuel to alternative energy. Last year I wrote an article concerning a local inventor who had already developed a fuel that can replace gasoline gallon for gallon.

With recent technological breakthroughs, the breezes that blow along Lake Erie are powerful enough to create commercial turbine power. The city of Bowling Green already has two utility-scale windmill turbines. A flood of inexpensive wind-driven electricity would be created under my administration. We have few alternatives. We can continue to invade oil-rich middle eastern nations under the pretense of bringing them democracy. But these last desperate fossil fuel wars will only bankrupt our nation. Read more

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Blackwell, White Supremacy and the CNP

The biggest story in this year’s gubernatorial election should not be that the FBI is investigating James Petro, but Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell’s relationship with the far right Council on National Policy.

The CNP is a highly secretive reactionary group with fascistic tendencies and ties to racists and homophobes. The article that I wrote for the freepress.org website with senior editor Harvey Wasserman captures the shadowy world of the CNP. Ken Blackwell is perhaps the most unfit candidate ever to run for the governorship in Ohio history.

His ties to Rev. Rod Parsley and the so-called Patriot Pastors put the majority of Ohioans at risk from a small religious minority that practices bigotry. While Ken Blackwell runs commercials attacking Jim Petro for contract-steering, Ohio newspapers have documented that Blackwell does the same. Blackwell believes that President Bush is above the law and should have the right to spy on American citizens without warrant, wage an illegal war in Iraq and torture in the name of our country.

If you wonder where Blackwell, who suppressed the Democratic votes in the major urban centers in Ohio, by making it difficult to register to vote — remember his requirement that no one could register unless it was on 80 bond white unwaxed paper — gets his ideas, just google the Council on National Policy. The real story in this election is the attempt by these right-wing zealots to hijack our state. What we really need is universal health care, a living wage, less tax breaks for millionaires, more money for our schools and to keep the Ohio National Guard in Ohio instead of fighting an illegal an unjust war ordered by the worst president in U.S. history.

For more, read my article, Why Did J. Kenneth Blackwell seek, then hide, his association with super-rich extremists and e-voting magnates?

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