Update from Africa

I wanted to take a very quick break from my travels not to ask for money and not to talk politics, but just to pass on some thoughts about two big global challenges which need to be on our minds: HIV/AIDS and climate change.

This week, Teresa and I experienced an up close and personal reminder of how far the world has yet to travel to defeat HIV/AIDS. Talking with people in poverty stricken KwaNgcolosi near Hillcrest in Durban, South Africa, we saw both the most inspiring and the most heartbreaking realities of a global struggle to defeat a global scourge.

We met orphaned children left with no choice but to assume adult responsibilities, caring for their young brothers and sisters. We met single mothers scratching out subsistence in mud houses, their husbands lost to a horrific disease. I have to tell you, experiences like this have an impact on you.

I didn't want to wait until I got back to the United States to say something to you, because tomorrow is World AIDS Day - and it needs to be a day of action. Challenge Washington to stop blocking better educational efforts and stop putting ideology before science. Demand that American leadership help convince nations like South Africa not to repeat our shameful denial of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s - and to commit their countries to saving lives not saving face. There is no fixing a problem political leaders refuse to admit exists.

There's something else - and I'll have much more to say about this when I'm back. I'll be leading - with Senator Boxer - a Senate delegation to Bali in December to the global conference where work will start on a new international climate change treaty. We can't wait until we have a new president; we need to get moving now. The world simply can't solve these problems without American participation and leadership. Stay tuned.

Bottom line - these are the huge global issues that demand that America be America again, and that we lead by example - and that we lead now.

Sincerely,

John F. Kerry

John Kerry For Senate
129 Portland Street, Suite 500, Boston, MA 02114-2014
info@johnkerry.com
www.johnkerry.com

U.S. Senate bill to criminalize thoughts, blogs, books and speech

We interrupt the normal flow of natural health information today to bring you an urgent message about free speech and "thought crimes" in America. The U.S. Senate is about to pass a law that would criminalize merely thinking thoughts in support of the U.S. Constitution, or against the war on Iraq, or against any government office (including the FDA). All across the internet, top bloggers, authors and commentators are expressing their deep concerns about this new "anti-terrorism" law and how it could plunge America into police state tyranny.

Here's a MUST-SEE video featuring a recent lecture by Naomi Wolfe. You must watch this if you care about your freedom! It's an extraordinary look at how history is repeating itself in America today. Click this link to view it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

This is a frightening time in America today. You are witnessing and living through the downfall of a free nation and the rise of a fascist state superpower. Read the first story below to inform yourself now about what's really happening to our freedoms and Constitutional rights in America today. This is no conspiracy theory, it's a genuine U.S. Senate bill that's about to be voted on!

Action Alert: Stop Holding our Troops for Ransom, Bring Them Home

Tell Congress to Support Our Troops, NOT War Profiteers

Action Page: http://www.usalone.com/no_more_mercenaries.php

Facebook Version:
http://apps.facebook.com/fb_voices/action.php?qnum=pnum740

This week the Cheney White House retaliated for not immediately
getting another 196 billion in emergency Iraq occupation bucks no
strings attached, by threatening to furlough 100,000 Army and Marine
Corps civilian employees in this country.

The Democrats passed a funding bill with some relatively flexible
requirements for a troop withdrawal goal, but it was blocked by yet
another mean-spirited Republican filibuster.

The fact is that the Pentagon has plenty of money for all the troops
to do whatever they want, but a lion's share of all appropriations
are now going to private mercenary militias like Blackwater. There
are as many so-called "contractors" in Iraq as regular members of our
armed forces. Has anybody suggested cutting back on any of them?
Maybe it's time somebody did.

We spend billions of dollars training our armed forces. And for what?
So that they can leave to go to Blackwater, who then sell their
services back to us at a massive markup, as much as 10 times as much.
What kind of crazy fiscal insanity is that?

With their furlough threats, they are literally holding our entire
military civil service for ransom! The only way to REALLY support our
troops is bring them home now, just as the overwhelming majority of
American are demanding, and as you can demand again now.

Action Page: http://www.usalone.com/no_more_mercenaries.php

Facebook Version:
http://apps.facebook.com/fb_voices/action.php?qnum=pnum740

This is like the grinch on steroids. They should be bringing our
troops home for the holidays, not punishing the families of those who
serve by laying them off, in some sick attempt to put political
pressure on Democrats responding to the wishes of the American people
who want an end to the criminal Iraq debacle.

The American people have figured out that all these hundreds of
billions of emergency appropriations, year after year, are not going
to, and have never gone to, support our troops. Instead they have
been piped directly into the pockets of crony war profiteers, as
enabled for example by the tag team of Cookie and Buzzy Krongard, one
impeding investigations of Blackwater crimes, and the other sitting
on their board.

And yet, every time someone tries to impose some accountability on
this gross embezzlement of the U.S. treasury, they threaten to starve
our real troops, their families, and send them into urban combat
without even protective armor.

Oh, but it gets worse. In many ways, this is just another form of
foreign outsourcing, as now we learn that many thousands of these
"contractors" are goons that Blackwater is recruiting from countries
like South Africa and Chile. Then when they open fire on and mow down
innocent civilians, they claim there is no law or jurisdiction where
they can be prosecuted for their war crimes. And they have an edict
from former U.S. viceroy Paul Bremer to back them up, along with
immunity handed out like candy by our state department.

These mercenaries are poison for our own military. They decimate the
morale of our troops who see them getting rich for doing the same
duty as they are, while better equipped. They then further even
decimate the ranks of our troops, by offering them deals to leave the
service which our own military can't compete with, using our own
money to do it. And Blackwater and their ilk are poison for any
mission we thought we had in Iraq, when one of their foreign thugs
murders another Iraq civilian in cold blood just for the hell of it.

Tell Congress to end all mercenary contracts now. The privatization
of the military is absolutely the worst possible thing for democracy
and peace. It makes endless war a corporate imperative.

Action Page: http://www.usalone.com/no_more_mercenaries.php

Facebook Version:
http://apps.facebook.com/fb_voices/action.php?qnum=pnum740

And once we stop fighting wars for the bottom line of crony
corporations, we can bring our troops home once and for all, until
they are needed for a real international crisis, not one created for
the profit of war criminals.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.usalone.com/in.htm

Las Vegas Democratic Debate- CNN stacks the cards

The Next Step to Impeach Bush and Cheney

Click here to subscribe.

ImpeachBush.org to initiate Winter Lobbying Campaign You can become an initial sponsor Dear D, To become an initial sponsor of the Winter Lobbying Campaign, click on this link. We are writing to you as one of the 22,182 people who have come to the ImpeachBush website in the last few days to flood Congress with letters demanding support for House Res. 333 for impeachment. This is an incredible response in a short period of time. You have taken a critical first step to bolster the impeachment movement. The Democratic leadership has behaved treacherously, keeping impeachment off the House floor -- as if impeachment were a tactical plaything and not a mandate of the U.S. Constitution. They have to know that the impeachment movement is serious, and won't be turned away. The sheer quantity of letters that flooded Congress in the past week have made that clear. Now we are asking you to help in another way. ImpeachBush has decided to launch an intensive few months to lobby Congress. Bush's approval ratings are at an all-time low, and with intensifying threats against Iran, our mission is needed as much now as ever before. Although we are set to announce this winter lobbying campaign to the rest of impeachment movement in the next few days, we are appealing to you, as one of our most active members, to become an initial sponsor. To become an initial sponsor of the Winter Lobbying Campaign, click on this link. Your donation will allow us to turn up the heat on Congress, produce impeachment literature, and to run newspaper ads in the major national and regional papers to energize and recruit concerned persons to the lobbying campaign. As a sponsor, you will receive periodic updates from former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark on all latest developments with the campaign. Of course, it's always powerful when we can announce that the impeachment movement has undertaken a new initiative. But think of how all-the-more powerful it would be if we could announce the launching of the campaign with hundreds or thousands of initial sponsors. Please become a sponsor of this critical campaign right now by clicking this link. -- All of us at ImpeachBush.org / VoteToImpeach.org

Confirmation of Mukasey = Complicity with Torture

If War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Aren't Enough to Get Impeachment, What IS?

TUESDAY: Congressman Dennis Kucinich, whose bill to impeach Cheney has 22 sponsors, will introduce a resolution on the floor of the U.S. House on Tuesday November 6. Another congress member will move to table (kill) the resolution. The vote on the tabling will come on the 6th, 7th, or 8th.

AfterDowningStreet.org says, "Ask your representative to vote No on tabling, Yes on giving impeachment a chance. Those who vote Yes to table cannot use the excuse that "We don't have the votes," since others will at that same instant with exactly the same exertion be voting No. Please contact Congress and the media right away!" More info at afterdowningstreet.org

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Friday, CNN reported on Nickelodeon's "Nick News with Linda Ellerbee" and the furor in the blogsophere over a clip called "Rebels With a Cause: Real Kids Tackle Important International Issues" Young World Can't Wait activists protesting torture in December 2006 are featured prominently in this clip. Watch Rebels With A Cause.

Here is the blog where "Army Wife Toddler Mom" is complaining that Linda Ellerbee's program is "anti-war, anti-GWOT, anti-military", attempting to get people to complain to Nickelodeon and the show's sponsors.

You can also follow the links and send a supportive message to Ellerbee and Nickelodeon.

Senators Schumer and Feinstein have announced they are going to vote for Mukasey for Attorney General, meaning that his confirmation is again likely, despite Mukasey's contention that he can't know if waterboarding is torture, and in fact doesn't know how the government is interrogating people it holds. Mukasey is in favor of expanded presidential powers, including warrantless wiretapping.

Let's be clear: confirmation of Mukasey means a reaffirmation of torture as official policy carried out by people who know what they are doing.

This is waterboarding

These are War Criminals

One of many letters to the New York Times against Mukasey:

"So our nominee for attorney general refuses to declare waterboarding illegal after being educated by a member of Congress on what it actually is. That explanation destroyed Judge Michael B. Mukasey's ability to deny knowledge of the practice; one is reminded of the obfuscation of Alberto R. Gonzales, the former attorney general, in his bobbing and weaving before Congress's questions.

Clearly, if confirmed, Judge Mukasey would act as a "team player" of the Bush administration, helping to cover up issues of torture, rather than as an independent enforcer of the nation's laws.

Part of the legacy of such a confirmation would be, inevitably, condoning waterboarding and other methods of torture in the future..." - Kathryn W. Kelber, Houston TX

One more reason?these crimes must be stopped. One more reason to drive out the Bush regime!

Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime

World Can't Wait

info@worldcantwait.org

866-973-4463
305 W. Broadway #185
New York, NY 10013