Please give me an opinion on my first newletter to friends and family

[bush_is_wacko]

Background for you guys. My family is entiriely composed of life-long liberals.

There is one Republican and his wife votes the way he does, but he is not getting this letter.(I have no idea where this neanderthal got his delusional ideas so don't ask) I have decided that the best way to handle him is through small tidbits of information that debunks whatever garbage he tries to shove down my throat. The rest of the family just ignores his ignorant remarks. They let me handle him because they know I will never back down and I kind of like the game of seeing his face when I reveal the "truth" to him. I know that makes me sound like a sadist and maybe I am a little.

Anyway here is the letter I am planning on sending to the rest of the family. Any and all advice and/or suggestions are more than welcomed!

On edit: I forgot to add the link to Conyers report please post it for me if you have it.



Hello everybody!

Due to the recent successes of many citizen grassroots organizations and a few emerging Democratic leaders involved in the fight to restore our democratic process I have been inspired to write a letter to my friends and family in the hopes of providing them with legitimate information regarding the true state of this country.

Many of you already realize the threat of reinstating the draft is looming on the horizon; Social Security is being targeted as a free-for-all, get-rich-quick scheme for America’s already corrupt corporate elite; Americans are increasingly being stripped of the ability to pay for health care and prescriptions; Government employees and ordinary citizens are threatened with job loss by the tens of thousands; The war in Iraq is not the huge success our administration keeps trying to convince us it is; Our civil rights have been and continue to be stripped bare by our administration; And whether you believe the charges or not MANY have come forward to expose the 2004 election as a complete and total failure, rife with fraud and almost completely controlled by partisan Republican owned and operated manufacturers of machines that are vulnerable to hacking and contain programs that are proprietary and can be easily manipulated. On top of all this, there is seemingly no mainstream media outlet willing to release the truth to the American public.

Many Americans have turned to the internet as their main source of news in order to try and find the truth about our situation. Unfortunately, a small percentage of the Republican party has resorted to calling these truth seekers everything from “conspiracy theorist” and “x-filers” to American “dissidents.”

While I don’t deny there are quite a few conspiracy theories flying around out there in cyberspace, I believe, the true x-filers, conspiracy theorist, etc., etc. are not the majority of “dissenters” and in fact are, in most cases, the very members of the Republican party that are making the accusations. These neo-conservatives are a nasty bunch of EXTREME right-wing Republicans and for some inexplicable reason our president seems to be up to his eyeballs in their delusional view of the world.

There is, however, a great deal of hope that American citizens and a growing number of Washington politicians are starting to have some success fighting back. While the movement has been around for many years, the first real success of this movement occurred on January 6, 2005, when Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D) of Ohio and Senator Barbara Boxer (D) of California formally objected to the certification of the Ohio electoral results and subsequently forced the Senate and House to hold a two hour debate which was publicly broadcast by C-span and woefully under-reported by the American mainstream media. This is only the second time this nation has undergone a formal objection to the results of an election. It is for this reasons that I feel it is essential to make sure my friends and relatives have the essential information and the power to join the fight to take back our democracy. The following information is a list of websites, stories, politicians, and grassroots efforts that have become the driving force behind all these efforts. The tiny blip they have produced on the American radar screen is truly

becoming a powerful force to be reckoned with. Even mainstream media has begun to recognize this fact.

History of electoral challenge:
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h221.html
http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/USA/1877Comp.CP.html
http://www.factsonfile.com/newfacts/Pdfs/46271/6-01.pdf


Information on the Ohio electoral challenge:
http://www.williambowles.info/us/house_dems.html

Information on pending lawsuits and allegations regarding the 2004 election:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE501A.html
http://www.votersunite.org/info/outsourcedemocracyno.asp
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jan05/295308.asp
http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/01/ale05018.html
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=7
http://www.stolenelection2004.com/alerts.html#media
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001122.htm
http://www.flcv.com/ussumall.html
http://www.velvetrevolution.us/
http://blatanttruth.org/
http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/


This guy deserves his own special category since he is a life-long Republican that is very willing to admit the 2004 election has not been resolved and election reform is a MUST:
http://www.chuckherrin.com/sinceyouasked.htm
http://www.chuckherrin.com/evotingquestions.htm
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevoteFAQ.htm
http://www.chuckherrin.com/E-voting.htm



This site contains the complete congressional records. These records include transcripts of what is said and other information:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/crecord/index.html








Contact information of all State and Federally elected officials, laws, bills, committee, PAC fund records, and much, much more can be found here:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
http://www.conservativeusa.org/mega-cong.htm
http://www.senate.gov/



This group led the charge for the protest on inauguration day in Washington D.C:
http://www.answercoalition.org/

(In case you missed it this was televised on C-Span and is still available for viewing there I believe. It was approximately three hours of speakers from all over the nation that are working on leading the movement for election reform, criminal prosecution of officials, ending the war in Iraq and much more.)



Information about the Iraqi “election” and opinion can be found in these recent articles:
http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=10330&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported
http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=10330&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported



This group is my favorite. The citizens on this site are a VERY powerful grassroots group. They have been quoted in many local and national newspapers and media outlets. They currently are the tie the binds all the other groups together.. Their letter writing, email, faxing, and other combined efforts are astounding and have been credited with being the reason Senator Boxer signed the objection to the Ohio electoral certification. Word of warning…Liberals of all kinds are represented here and they know their stuff. Some of them are more radical than others but they all seem to be able to agree and act simultaneously when it is needed. This is a fantastic website, but if you are a Republican and intend to argue with them you will be toast in a matter of minutes. Every issue you can possibly imagine is researched, discussed, debated, and acted upon within this forum. In fact since I posted this forum I have no need to post anything else. Anything you wish to accumulate more knowledge on and where it can be found is available to you through this site.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/

Happy hunting to all of you!

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. That's great, and the plug at the end is gonna make a few people blush!

check your first paragraph, might need to break it into a few more sentences. I do this weird thing, where I unconsciously don't breath in the middle of a sentence, I used to turn blue reading some of my own reports! LOL

[onecent]

2. Wow, I'd kinda like to meet your family... I wouldn't mind quoting

bits of your letter - you did write it very well.

[bush_is_wacko]

5. You're welcome to quote anything.

I do love my family! They are a wonderful bunch!

[corbett]

3. Comprehensive! Well Done!

[Peace Patriot]

4. bush_is_wacko, here are my comments...

Very readable up to this point, then I wasn't sure what you were saying. I suggest new sentence, new paragraph for the sujbect of 2004 election fraud, and election reform.


"And whether you believe the charges or not MANY have come forward to expose the 2004 election as a complete and total failure, rife with fraud and almost completely controlled by partisan Republican owned and operated manufacturers of machines that are vulnerable to hacking and contain programs that are proprietary and can be easily manipulated. On top of all this, there is seemingly no mainstream media outlet willing to release the truth to the American public." --bush_is_wacko

""And whether you believe the charges or not MANY have come forward..." ??? --don't know what you mean.

I would suggest also that you add a sentence about what reform is needed, so if they come across petitions, letter writing campaigns, etc., re: election reform, they'll know something about it and can act accordingly.

Say something simple, like the reforms needed are not complicated, but they are very urgent. We need either

a. Paper ballots
b. Hand counts (return to the old way--something human eyes can see)

or

a. Open source code (public review of all programming code that runs election computers)
b. Voter verified paper ballot (and one that takes precedence over electronic tallies in any recount)

and c) undoctored exit polls, used worldwide to verify elections (the exit polls we saw on our TV screens on 11/2 were being "altered" to fit the "official result," thus we didn't know that Kerry had won the exit polls--the people in the Ukraine got to see the two conflicting results--and demanded a re-vote!).

And speaking of exit polls, here are several very important reports from experts, including nine Ph.D.s, who seriously question the 2004 electiion result:

Exit poll analysis: astronomical odds against Bush win

Dr. Steven Freeman: "The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy"
http://www.truthout.org/unexplainedexitpoll.pdf
(also at: http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/epdiscrep.htm)
Dr. Ron Baiman: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/997
Dr. Webb Mealy: http://www.selftest.net/redshift.htm
Jonathan Simon:http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00142.htm

(1/29/05 - Nine Ph.D's from leading universities call for investigation of 2004 Election)
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

(Florida: 130,000 to 230,000 phantom votes for Bush--paper vs. electronic voting:)
Dr. Michael Haut & UC Berkeley stats team: http://ucdata.berkeley.edu

Johns Hopkins report on insecurity of electronic voting (general): http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00196.htm#5

Ohio vote suppression: http://www.bpac.info

TruthIsAll: "To believe Bush won, you have to believe…"

Part 1
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1316010

Part 2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1358806

Part 3
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x197878

-----

And here's a link to a great video, by Faye and Dzikas of Democratic Underground, on the 2004 election:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=304254&mesg_id=304254

[bush_is_wacko]

7. Thanks! I was hoping someone would help me with these links

I must add that I do think all my family knows what happened and probably even knows what kind of reform is needed but these links are very valuable to the mathematical intellectuals in the family. Several of my family members graduated from the Colorado School of Mines. to be perfectly honest, I don't speak their language, if you know what I mean? TIA's information has already been printed off and sent to some of them. They loved it! I'm afraid they had to explain most of it too me and I still don't really get it but understand that the odds are astronomical that this election could have been legitimate. And thanks for the link to the video. I had an error message when I tried to look at it last time!

[bush_is_wacko]

8. How does this edited version of the section you mentioned sound?

And whether you believe the allegations or not, MANY very intelligent and very informed people on both sides of the aisle, have come forward to expose the 2004 election as a complete and total failure, rife with fraud and almost completely controlled by partisan Republican owned and operated manufacturers of machines that are vulnerable to hacking and which operate on computer programs that are proprietary and can be easily manipulated.

I know this is long winded and I am having a very difficult time wording it.

Suggestions?

[Amaryllis]

6. Conyers report here, and consider this:

Conyers:
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohiostatusrept1505.pdf

and consider these Herrin articles (the first one would also be great for your republican relative)

See his excellent articles
http://www.chuckherrin.com/ConservativeEmpathy.htm
Empathy Training for Compassionate Conservatives: Why the Democrats Are Still Whining About the Election (and Why Maybe We Should Be, Too)
which is the best and most convincing election fraud article I have seen, for dem doubters and for republicans who think their party could not possibly be so corrupt.

and

http://www.chuckherrin.com/LiberalEmpathy.htm
Empathy Training for Liberals: A Primer on the Conservative Mind, From the Inside of One.
which we would do well to read and take his suggestions if we want to win this battle. We have to frame the debate in a way that we are not alienating potential allies if we are to succeed. Alls dems should read this.

[bush_is_wacko]

9. Chuck Herrin articles are MOST welcome. I have included these links in

the Chuck Herrin section of my letter. Thank you very much! also thanks for that Conyers link. I have it somewhere but was not finding it where I thought it would be.

I'm studying up on the first Herrin article! You are absolutely right this would be a perfect little tidbit for him!

[Amaryllis]

10. I noticed you had the other Herrin stuff. The one for conservatives is

by far the best I have seen to give to republicans. And I think the liberal's guide to empathy is essential for dems to read to read in order to advance our cause. We have to stop framing it in terms of the repubs stole it from the dems, and say a group of repubs stole from Americans.

[bush_is_wacko]

11. I agree and as you can see that is how I worded my letter even though

I do not intend to send that letter to my Republican uncle. he gets tidbits that point him in the right direction from time to time but giving him everything will only serve to confuse and frustrate him. I think he's actually bothered to research a few suggestions for himself since I started debunking him every time he quotes neo-con rhetoric. I know Chuck Herrin has been suggested to him because I have made it a point to let him hear it from his side of the aisle.

[Amaryllis]

12. I have a repub brother and have to be careful how I approach him!