World Can't Wait National Meeting November 22/23 Chicago Register & learn more now Now, more than ever, World Can't Wait is a needed vehicle and we are not going away. If you believe politics as usual cannot meet the enormity of the problem we face, join World Can't Wait in Chicago on November 22 and 23.  We will examine what we need to do in this next phase to decisively defeat, repudiate, and reverse the Bush program. World Can't Wait invites all our friends and allies to join in planning, attending, and contributing to shape the movement. Copyrighted Image? DMCA Supporting and sustaining this movement takes each of us! You might be surprised to know that I don't read the Wall Street Journal regularly.  A friend just sent me Peggy Noonan's column for Friday,"Playing Frisbee on a Precipice."  The WSJ generally presents the views of those who run the empire, and clearly they are worried: Copyrighted Image? DMCA "Both campaigns, in the closing stretch, seem not fully worthy of the moment. We are in crisis-a once-in-a-century event, as we now say. And what we got from the candidates, in this week's presidential debate, was a bunch of gummy meanderings-smooth, rounded sentences so full of focus-grouped inanities that six minutes in viewers entered a kind of trance in which we almost immediately gave up on trying to wrest meaning from what was being said and instead focused on mere impressions. The look of things. The men on the plane, the pseudo-tough political operatives who surround both candidates, sometimes grouse, in private, that it's all symbols now, all mood, all about the visual.  But they have some real responsibility here. They send their candidates out to speak such thin gruel, such spat-out porridge, that we are struck dumb, and left daydreaming about the fact that Mr. Obama's suits are always slate gray and never seem to wrinkle, and Mr. McCain tonight seems like a rabbity forest creature darting amid the hedgerows. Why would anyone trust either candidate to help dig us out of this if they can't speak frankly about what got us into it?" From the standpoint of those who don't even want an empire, I agree!  There isn't anyone "up there" who can fix what is going on with the globalized economy.  They won't stop the "war of terror" yet Congress approved, and Bush signed a law today that rewards India for developing nukes.  And none of this has anything to do with elections - the people have no say in it. Is Posse Comitatus Dead?  Matt Rothschild writes in The Progressive about the 3rd Infantry being back in the US, where it is being trained for domestic counter-insurgency. He was on Democracy Now Tuesday.  "On October 1, the Pentagon, for the first time ever, dedicated an Army force specifically to NorthCom, which is in charge of securing not some foreign region but the United States of America.  The unit it assigned is the 3rd Infantry, First Brigade Combat Team, which has spent three of the last five years in Iraq. It was one of the first units to get to Baghdad, and it was active in retaking and patrolling Fallujah. One of its specialties is counterinsurgency.  This marks a change for NorthCom, which was established on October 1, 2002. Its website still says it 'has few permanently assigned forces,' and that 'the command is assigned forces whenever necessary to execute missions, as ordered by the President and the Secretary of Defense.'" Yes, this is alarming, given the militarization of the border, militarization of the schools, and the spectacle of military-like policing in St. Paul last month.  Here is ONE MORE CHANCE --before we send it on to the City Councils of Denver and St. Paul  -- to sign the petition against the abuse of political protest in those cities during the conventions. 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, NY, NY 10013

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

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