Investigative journalist Gary Webb refused to be complicit. For his courage, the Mockingbird character assassins remembered him with this hit-piece of an obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/obituaries/13webb.html

After the 2004 election, five weeks before his "suicide", he called out the American people for their apathy and moral cowardice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3977503.stm

"What this election tells me, unfortunately, is that it doesn't matter to most Americans if their government lies to them repeatedly.

They no longer care if their leaders erode their civil liberties, push this country further towards a police state, or shroud their actions in additional layers of official secrecy.

They don't mind if their government operates strictly for the benefit of the rich and the corporate class, as long as their own taxes don't go up.

Nor do they care if their government spends itself to the brink of bankruptcy. As long as they feel threatened by some external evil, everything is permitted."

By the time Webb wrote these words the 2004 election had already been conceded to George W. Bush by John Kerry, despite already staggering evidence of fraud which has since been exhaustively catalogued by investigators like Robert Kennedy, Jr. http://tinyurl.com/5aq39o And Ohio was only one of the holes leading to that dark warren.

http://www.bradblog.com/Docs/ClintCurtis/CC_Affidavit_120604.pdf

But even assuming pervasive election fraud in 2004, enough Americans were sufficiently moved to press the red button that the Bush regime was renewed, claiming a "mandate" that endowed it with "political capital". This "mandate" made the US public complicit in--among other crimes of state--the crime against humanity the Iraq War already clearly was. Within days, the punitive annihilation of Fallujah began. http://tinyurl.com/6qvtvz

Bold voices against militarism are among us. Dennis Kucinich, the only member of Congress with the moral courage to draft Articles of Impeachment against both Bush and Cheney, was marginalized and smeared in the corporate media before being ejected from the debates altogether. Was it something he said?

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/10/31/kucinich-i-saw-a-ufo/

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/nbc-appeals-ruling-on-adding-kucinich-to-debate/?hp

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2007/08/5255_kucinich_wins_d.html

And if, say, the female African-American Green Party candidate for President speaks out and the media ignore her, does she make a sound? http://www.mckinney2008.com/PRESIDENT/index.php

Was Gary Webb right about "most Americans"? Admittedly, for all the right-wing hystrionics about the menace of the "leftist" or "socialist" Democratic candidate, the American people have again been given a choice between corporate Red and corporate Blue. But there is a difference. Many more millions are informed and aware than were in 2004. Fear has passed its sell-by date. Whoever gets the "nod", We the People are awake, and watching.