OntheWilderSide

Hello Friends:

I’m on the road again with trips to DC and to New York City. In DC I’ll be fundraising at several locations and showing the film American Blackout on Howard University’s campus. In New York City I will be at the Audubon Ballroom, the infamous location of Malcolm X’s murder.

In Washington, DC: 

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 DC

• 12:00 – 2:00pm, Event & Fundraiser, University of Maryland’s Nyumburu Cultural Center College Park, MD 20742. We’ve been informed that C-SPAN will record the event for future broadcast. Campus map: http://www.umd.edu/CampusMaps/
• 5:30 – 6:30pm, Fundraiser Reception Host: David Bosserman, DC Statehood Green Party, La Orilla, 1739 Irving St NW, Washington, DC 20010 orilla@comcast.net
• 7:00-9:00pm, American BlackOut Showing, Howard University, Alain Locke Hall, Washington DC 20059. American BlackOut is an award-winning documentary on the disenfranchisement of African-American voters in recent elections and the odds she faced in her own reelection to Congress.

CAPITOL RESISTANCE, a hip-hop-based community education campaign, will accompany Ms. McKinney throughout the day and will do some performing at the Howard University event.

In New York City…

Thursday, February 21, 2008 NYC “The Assassination of Malcolm X: A Riddle Unraveled” 43rd anniversary of his murder at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City Panel discussion 5:00 – 7:00 pm, broadcast live on Sirius Satellite Radio Malcolm X/Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial Center, Audubon Ballroom, 3940 Broadway, New York, NY. Confirmed speakers so far:

• Co-moderators John Judge, COPA and Mark Matsimila Thompson, Sirius Radio
• Co-sponsor and caterer – Vox Pop Bookstore
• Baba Zak Kondo, Ph.D., author of Conspiracys: Unravelling the Assassiantion of Malcolm X
• Jared Ball, Ph.D., professor at Frostberg State, University of Maryland, scholar on contemporary African-American history
• Six-term Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (GA), expert on COINTELPRO and civil rights movement

Given the results revealed in the New Hampshire recount of about a 20% rate of error in the vote tabulation and the New York Times story revealing that at least one precinct heavy with black voters recorded zero votes for Obama, I must question how both major political parties can remain silent in the face of such lack of election integrity. Voters are being purged from voter files and electronic pollbooks incorrectly record voters’ party affiliations, among other things.

I have consistently, from the moment Diebold’s touch screen machines were first deployed in our country–in Georgia in 2002–demanded election integrity. In courtroom action to obtain election data in my 2006 Congressional election, the expert witness for the State of Georgia, defending the position that election data belong to Diebold, advised the court that voters would just have to “trust” the election results that were announced. In the 2008 election cycle, how much trust must we have when confronted with blatant inconsistencies in every voting experience?

Unfortunately, none of this is new and despite the glaring need, neither political party is addressing this issue. In 2000, the Democratic Party refused to stand for election integrity and its own victory that the voters gave it, in an outright election theft by the Republican Party that was allowed to stand.

In 2004, the Democratic Party failed to support black voters disfranchised by the Republican Party; it was Democratic grassroots voters along with the Green and Libertarian Parties who refused to give in–even as John Kerry was conceding the very next day after the election. In light of nothing to date having been done to address election integrity by the Congress, I must ask, what happens if, when the election results are announced in November, we don’t “trust” them?

Please view my latest video, “Leave the Oil in the Soil” [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jJtSkQlhqI]

To keep up with my events, visit http://www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com or http://www.runcynthiarun.org

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