The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is going to be running an ad fighting back against Barack Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

This is exactly what liberals and progressives should be doing. Confronting corrupt politicians, regardless of party, is the only way we are going to restore democracy and freedom to America.

Continuing Bush's tax cuts for the rich is inexcusable. It is typical of what we have experienced from corrupt rightists like Bill Clinton, who cut taxes for the rich himself by cutting capital gains taxes.



Here's the embed code if you want to run this on your blog:
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4mRRKz9E0m8?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4mRRKz9E0m8?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

They are raising funds to run this ad.

You also can sign the petition against Barack Bush's tax cuts for the rich.

 

Before I get to this particular activist campaign, I thought I would give what appears to be the answer to the question that piqued my curiosity. Who is the ghostwriter of Shrub's book? (The Daily Beast 3/9/10)

How did 28-year-old ex-Yalie and former speechwriter Christopher Michel become the man behind Dubya's memoirs? Bryan Curtis talks to Bush chief of staff Andrew Card and former speechwriters Matt Latimer and Marc Thiessen about how Michel went from Barbara Bush’s classmate to the confidant he dubbed “Junior Bird Man.”

Now, onto the substance.

Various activists are calling for people taking Shrub's Bush, which most bookstores are misfiling, and putting it in Crime sectionsm where it belongs. From CODEPINK's 11/12/10 press release: (bolding mine)

With the release of George W. Bush's memoir Decision Points, CODEPINK activists are mobilizing throughout the country to make sure Bush is greeted by protests. They have already "greeted him" at book signings in Dallas and Milwaukee, and will be outside his events in Miami this weekend as well as at the opening of Bush's Presidential Library in Dallas next week. Activists are also descending on bookstores to move Decision Points into the Crime section at local bookstores, and are downloading special "This Book's Author is a War Criminal" bookmarks to put in each copy.

"With his book, media appearances and the opening of his library in Dallas, George Bush is being treated as a respected statesman instead of what he really is: a war criminal," said CODEPINK cofounder Medea Benjamin. "That's why we, the people, have to set the record straight."

Bill Quigley, writing on Michael Moore's website, discussed the true crime nature of the book as well. Somebody also started a Facebook Group which proposes moving the book where it belongs.

It's odd how something as innocuous as properly filing a book in a bookstore or library has become subversive in our incredibly censored and propagandized society.

As CODEPINK pointed out in their press release, there is a very serious issue behind this rather mild act of restoring correct order to book collections.

"High officials must be held accountable for criminal acts," says CODEPINK cofounder Jodie Evans. "Otherwise, it sends a clear message to future administrations--including the current one--that they are not required to uphold the basic tenets of human rights and international law."

Image: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

 

The corporate media never thought much of Cindy Sheehan. And, when she started criticizing pro war Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in 2007 and 2008, partisan Democrats on the blogs often either attacked her or ignored her for holding the same opinions and values they praised her for when Republicans controlled all three branches of government.

It's really an embarrassment. Sheehan is still one of the brightest and most committed activists for peace and social justice issues. She should be a leader in liberal thought and action, yet liberals too tethered to the Democrats are ignoring her or resenting her for speaking out against politicians like President Obama who go against the values and policies supported by grassroots Democrats.

In a recent blog posting of hers, Sheehan makes numerous points. Here are some of the most telling.

To some of us, the problem is not so much that Obama has proven to be a dismal failure—because we know that he has been a huge success to the ruling class and corporations--but that partisan politics always overshadows common sense and true peace. We lost a lot of time giving Obama a “chance,” and thousands have lost their lives and their ways of life.

I was outraged when, after three days in office, Obama authorized a drone strike into Northern Pakistan that killed dozens of civilians, but I was excoriated for being outraged. I was devastated when he announced an increase in troops (3 times so far) to Afghanistan, and attacked for not caring about Afghan women (the ones our Empire are “protecting” by killing them and their children). I was laughed out of town when I was infuriated that Obama had declared himself “Judge, jury and executioner” of American citizens. People who formerly supported me told me to “shut up and go away, you have had your 15 minutes of fame.”

In some ways, its similar to the way that Jane Hamsher of Firedog Lake has been the target of a smear campaign by the HMOs, the health insurers, and their Democratic enablers. She has been attacked by the notoriously misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and rightist DailyKos and by other "A List" Democratic bloggers for sticking to the same positions that they advocated on healthcare before Obama, Pelosi, and Reid demanded that everyone go along with a wealthcare bill that robs the vast majority of the country and hands the booty over to the super rich. Some blogs featured wild and unsubstantiated headlines claiming that Hamsher was part of the teabagger movement even though the position of the Democratic politicians on healthcare was far closer to those of the teabaggers than Hamsher's. The body of the postings didn't live up to the salacious headlines, but it created a partisan feeding frenzy among naive left bloggers who wanted so much to believe in a party apparatus that had abandoned them.

Meanwhile, the brunt of suffering under the healthcare system and the crap economy is being inflicted on the middle class and the poor. The rich are doing fabulously well. The Democratic politicians are doing precious little change this.

It's worse abroad. Things for the Iraqi and Afghan people keep deteriorating. The reconstruction still isn't being done, but more destruction piles up. Obama hasn't been withdrawing from Iraq. He's been replacing regular troops with mercenaries who commit more atrocities while costing the US Treasury far more money. He's been hugely ramping up the US presence in Afghanistan, using a strategy of killing civilians because our troops are so overburdened and burnt out by far too many deployments in south and southwest Asia they can do little else at this point.

Really, where are the peaceniks? Where are the liberals with enough common sense and human decency to fight back against "Democrats" like Obama, Reid, and Pelosi who keep treating us like shit?

Photo: D.C.Atty

 

Markos Moulitsas, proprietor of the infamous Phonycrat spin factory, the Daily Kos, now has Dennis Kucinich in his crosshairs because Kucinich is committing the ultimate offense of not being bought and paid for by the HMOs and health insurers.

From Democracy Now! 3/11/10:

MARKOS MOULITSAS: [I’m going to hold] people like Dennis Kucinich responsible for the 40,000 Americans that die each year from a lack of healthcare. And I don’t care if you’re a Republican or you’re a conservative Democrat or you’re somebody like Dennis Kucinich. The fact is, this does a heck of a lot for a lot of people. And like I said, it’s not perfect, it definitely needs to be improved, but it’s a first step. And God knows, it’s taken us a long time to even get our toe in the door, given the corporate interests that are arrayed against any kind of real reform. So I think this is a first step. It’s definitely not the end of the path. It’s not the ideal solution. But we are—our foot’s in the door. And if somebody like Kucinich wants to block that, I find that completely reprehensible.

And he’s elected, not to run for president, which he seems to do every four years. He’s not elected to grandstand and to—and to give us this ideal utopian society. He’s elected to represent the people of his district, and he’s not representing the uninsured constituents in his district by pretending to take the high ground here. What he’s doing, he’s undermining this reform. He’s making common cause with the Republicans. And I think that’s a perfect excuse and a rationale for a primary challenge.

Only a true rightist nutjob would say that voting to fine uninsured people for not being able to pay astronomic premiums is "representing" them. Moulitsas isn't some naive blogger who posts a couple of times a week and doesn't have the time to find out what this wealthcare bill is actually about. That guy lives and breathes politics. He is perfectly aware of what the wealthcare bill actually does.

1) Fines people for not being able to afford health insurance.

2) Makes it possible for the HMOs and health insurance companies to add astronomical premium hikes to already sky high rates.

3) Cuts life saving care for people on Medicare.

4) Puts into place unconscionable restrictions on abortion. (Yes, I know the Stupak restrictions are even worse, but that's still no excuse.)

5) Creates tax penalties for employers that provide mediocre health plans instead of terrible ones. (The mediocre plans are what the corporate media refer to as "Cadillac Care.")

6) Shovels a lot more of our nation's wealth in the direction of the HMOs and health insurers and away from the middle class and the poor.

Contrary to the DLC/HMO spin, this wealthcare bill is not about "incrementalism." It's a gigantic plunge backward.

Moulitsas' spin on healthcare and so many other issues that liberals and progressives care about is starting to resemble that of a concern troll (Urban Dictionary).

In an argument (usually a political debate), a concern troll is someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with "concerns". The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you're an ally.

Suggestion to Liberals and Progressives with DailyKos Diaries: Start Your Own Blogs

The Daily Kos is a large site, and starting a diary there may seem like a good way to drive web traffic towards your ideas. However, if your views are to the left of Evan Bayh, good luck in getting them featured there. Lotsa luck if you ever support a Green or Independent candidate against a far right Phonycrat.

Having your own blog may seem to be more work. But, remember, it takes a lot of work to get your diary noticed in the land of Markosbots. And, its a largely hostile audience to liberal and progressive views. If you have your own blog, you get far more editorial control, and the same amount of work will get you at least as big of an audience. (Interestingly enough, the comments/viewer ratio for Kos diaries is much higher than that of blogs, which can mask the size of your blog's readership if you don't use some kind of web stats such as Google Analytics).

Blogger and WordPress both are viable platforms for hosting your blog, and they are free. I prefer Blogger for a host of reasons I will omit for now for the sake of (relative) brevity. Both are pretty user friendly, though I found Blogger easier to pick up.

You get to express yourself freely with your blog. Also, you don't have someone exploiting your labor who holds you and your views in utter contempt like Markos Moulitsas.

Photo: nmfbihop

 

(Illustration: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t)

Image paired with the story:
Howard Zinn: A Public Intellectual Who Mattered

The great historian Howard Zinn may be gone, but his amazing legacy remains. Here are two wonderful quotes from him that should inspire liberal and progressive activists at the worst of times (or the best).

"The lesson of that history is that you must not despair, that if you are right, and you persist, things will change. The government will try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and television may do the same, but the truth has a way of coming out. The truth has a power greater than a hundred lies. My hope is that you will not be content to be successful in the way our society measures success; that you will not obey the rules, when the rules are unjust; that you will act out the courage that I know is in you."

- Howard Zinn - Address to Spelman College, 2005


"to engage in whatever nonviolent actions appeal to us. There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at critical points to create a power that governments cannot suppress. We find ourselves today at one of those critical points."

- Howard Zinn

I think the part about "no act too small" is really important. It is easy to get discouraged because you are only one person, and, separately, your actions may not make that big of a difference. Remember, you are part of a large community of activists, bloggers, and others who are doing all sorts of things to achieve the same goals. Be happy to be a part through what you are doing, and try to do a little more.

 

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you know that I have lots of problems with the Obama Administration and the Senate Democratic leadership continuing the Bush regime's policy goals on most issues. Well, it turns out that I'm not the only liberal or progressive that is losing patience with this.

Cornell West expresses his frustrations with President Obama very diplomatically, but very powerfully. (Hat Tip: GDAEman)

Last week, 13 activists were arrested protesting US militarism in front of the White House. I think a lot of people were under the impression that they would be able to stop protesting once Obama was elected. Wrong.

Speaking of protesting, doctors supporting single payers got arrested in an act of civil disobedience outside of the hotel where Obama and House Goppers had their little spat. From the 1/29/10 Single Payer Action press release:

During his State of the Union speech on Wednesday, Obama said he wanted to hear from people on a better approach to health care reform that will “bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses.”

“Let me know, let me know, let me know. I’m eager to see it,” Obama said.

Flowers, Paris and the majority of doctors and nurses in America believe that approach is a single payer national health insurance system.

Obama himself, when he was a state Senator in Illinois in 2003, said single payer was the way to go.

But last year, he cut deals with the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries in a now failed attempt to get through tinkering reforms.

Obama is so used to Republican critics who can't answer challenges on policy alternatives that he thinks that his critics on the left can't either.

Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive is so disgusted with the way this administration is going that he has called for the firing of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Firing Rahm would be a good start, but Gates, Clinton, Geitner, and Summers should not be forgotten when discussing Obama administration officials who should get canned.

Cindy Sheehan is doing a great job articulating frustrations with the Obama administration on her blog. Dean Baker is taking Obama to the rhetorical woodshed for supporting tax credits that would give businesses incentives for hiring fewer workers. Noam Chomsky is fond of referring to "Brand Obama." (Hat Tip: After Downing Street)



Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors has a more snarky approach to describing the anger that liberals feel towards this administration. I highly recommend it.

Many partisan Democrats will urge us to be infinitely patient with President Obama. Liberals and progressives were told the same thing with Bill Clinton, and he acted like a horrible, far right Republican his entire administration. Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.

In 1993 and 1994, Bill Clinton and the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate played a sick game of chicken with the party base, practically daring them to stay home or vote Green. We all remember what happened in 1994. It happened again this month in Massachusetts.

 

I remember when the Goppers pushed the phony baloney impeachment of Bill Clinton. Clinton was widely unpopular among liberals and progressives for his conservative, Republican policies. Yet, the unfair and anti democratic impeachment fraud led many on the left to sympathize with a President who brought us financial deregulation, NAFTA, the WTO, scapegoating and punishing women of color on welfare, draconian budget cuts, and a harsher version of military ban signed into law, replacing the previous executive order.

I saw so many liberals identify with Bill Clinton, our political enemy. It was so surreal.

Now, the Goppers have gone even further. They are trying to rile up their nutjobs into assassinating Barack Obama and other center right Democrats. This is vile and unpatriotic. It's no wonder that so many liberals and progressives are defending politicians who are, once again, their political opponents.

We are allowing ourselves to be backed into a corner by the far right tactics. There must be another way, and there is.

We need to strongly attack and condemn the far right for what they are doing. But, that must not stop us from speaking out against policies of center right Democrats that are far too similar to the corporatist agenda of the last 29 years. Speaking out against conservative policies pushed by Democrats also has the beneficial tactic of raising questions in the minds of some of the rightists as to just how "liberal" the Democratic Party leadership really is.

We are in a difficult situation, but losing our nerve only makes things worse. Failing to learn from our mistakes during the Clinton Administration is not a luxury liberals or this country can afford.

 

I like how Dennis Kucinich uses this to express their common values too. He does a good job of expressing the concerns of progressives in this country today in a brief message.

Kucinich also has a lot to say about Global Warming. He discusses the problems with loopholes in latest Global Warming legislation.



 

In comments on GDAEman's blog, I discussed the idea of promoting left populism. GDAEman alluded to the fact that I hadn't described the term.

I see left populism as a view of politics that promotes progressive values in the context of peoples' daily lives. It promotes freedom, justice, and equality in practical terms based on peoples' struggles rather than on abstract theory. It recognizes that activists who have worked on issues for decades have given more thought to solutions than abstract generalists relying on theories. If you want to see a good example of left populism, go to Michael Moore's website.

One must be careful to contrast left and right populism. Right populism glorifies peoples' prejudices to distract them from their interests. Left populism combats prejudice on its own merit, but also condemns it in the context of the politics of distraction. Much of the promotion of various "isms" in the corporate media is a variation of the pickpocket's trick of having an accomplice bump into or otherwise distract a victim who won't know that his or her valuables are being stolen until it is too late.

Right populism tries to discuss class as an aspect of an ethnic group or other minority, leaving the vast majority of the economic elites free from any scrutiny at all. The Sarah Palins of the world talk about the working class regularly, but pretend that their most dangerous enemies are other working class people. Sound suspicious?

Obviously, this is a cursory introduction to the notion of left populism. But, it is important to start a discussion. Far right and conservative elites control the Republican and Democratic Parties respectively. Their policies and arrogance are creating a tremendous amount of legitimate anger in this country. That anger needs to be acknowledged and addressed productively rather than being dismissed. The latter is just too dangerous.

This show of Bill Maher's had the most bizarre booking. He put on Naomi Klein, one of the most important and influential economic thinkers of our time, with (giggle) Andrew Sullivan to discuss the economic crises. The booking made about as much sense as it would have made for a previous generation of talk show to book Jean Paul Sartre to discuss Philosophy with Tim Conway or Twiggy. The clip is worth watching just to listen to Ms. Klein. (Hat tip to Driftglass)



I stopped reading Sullivan years ago. His writing was aesthetically pleasing, but it was intellectually vapid. Even worse, Sullivan loved to pontificate on subjects he knew little about.

Aside from the fact that talk show banter can't be polished to sound nice, his appearance on the show fit the rest of the pattern. I couldn't believe how many silly far right talking points he parroted even though they had just been conclusively proven wrong.

There were claims that Sullivan made that were especially silly. Most amazingly, he blamed the financial crises on ordinary people who kept spending more money by borrowing while wages had stagnated.

One obvious problem is that he is completely ignorant of what triggered the subprime mortgage collapse. The underlying cause was the practice of the banksters to use predatory subprime mortgages to try to defraud people into giving them big down payments and then suddenly jacking up interest rates and taking away their homes.

Anyone who has a mortgage knows that the documents are written to be understood only by lawyers. I'm well educated and have an IQ of 140, yet I had trouble understanding my relatively simple fixed rate mortgage documents. I've read enough of Sullivan's columns in the past to know that he would have no hope of understanding my mortgage, much less the language used in the predatory mortgage paperwork.

Even worse, the banksters quietly changed industry practices on adjustable rate mortgages. Before, the interest rates paid on ARMs followed general interest rates, with some lag time because they weren't adjusted daily. With the predatory ARMs, the banksters slipped in huge interest rate increases, unrelated to market conditions, without warning people ahead of time.

The scam collapsed because the banksters, shock of shocks, got too greedy. One bank imitated another until lower middle class and poor people were inundated with deceptive marketing for these ripoffs. So many people had been conned (with no warning from the corporate media I might add) that the flood of foreclosures caused the housing market to collapse.

Some of the banksters realized that the whole thing was shaky and overextended before the whole thing went caput. They created novel and deceptive mortgage paper with complex structures that most of the banksters themselves didn't really understand and peddled them to speculators without providing adequate explanations.

We know what happened next.

Another problem with Sullivan's spin is that stagnating (or even declining) incomes didn't occur in a vacuum. They were the result of the same "free market" ideology and policies that Sullivan almost drooled over later in the clip. It's amazing that even when the show was taped, Sullivan was completely unaware of this.

Oops!

Naomi Klein made some excellent points. The one I hadn't heard before is one I would like to mention. She asked Sullivan where in the world has the kind of "free market capitalism" that he espoused ever existed. Of course, he had no answer.

Ordinarily the silly Sullivan wouldn't bother me that much. He would just be another dim rightist hack. I know not to read his goofy columns, and wouldn't have even watched this if Naomi Klein wasn't in it.

What really galls me is that the corporate media have unilaterally chosen him as the main spokesperson for the queer community even though he is much, much more right leaning than most of us are and has internalzed homophobia issues. It's part of how the media corporations work so hard to limit the range of political thought most Americans are exposed to.

On a lighter note: I remember when I used to live in Washington, DC. When I was at the predominantly gay gym there, no hot guys cruised me one day. On that same day, Andrew Sullivan and Rich Tafel both cruised me. Ordinarily, being cruised by physically unattractive people is flattering as long as they seem like reasonably nice people. Sullivan and Tafel are far from nice people. It was one of a deluge of things that convinced me to move from DC to NYC.

 

A recent post on Preserve, Protect, and Defend does an excellent job of pointing out the frustrations Obama supporters have with his conservative critics in the corporate media and in Congress. I encourage you to read the whole post, part of which I'm excerpting here.

I'm so sick of all the talking-heads that spout only drivel, second-guessers, back-seat-drivers, know-nothings and do-nothings that I could vomit.

At the same time that they're telling Obama that he's not doing enough: that he should have solved the economic crisis by now— you know, the one that took at least all the years since Reagan took office to create —they're managing to tell him that he's doing too much. Somehow, they've managed to convince themselves he can do both simultaneously.
And they accuse us of calling him Superman.

What they're actually saying is that they don't want to save the environment and create sustainable energy sources. They don't want the rest of us to have affordable health care. They don't want to care for our veterans. They don't want to allow the children of us peons to receive an education. And they absolutely refuse to see how all these matters are related to each other and the economy.

It is understandable that people would be tired of the nihilism and opportunism of the right. However, we all have a responsibility to be "back seat drivers" and "second guessers." In a democracy , that is our responsiblity and inalienable right. We have to remember that politicians work for us, not the other way around.

There are critics on the left who are making legitimate points about the need for Obama to do more. He needs to do more, a lot more, in many areas. Here are some blatantly obvious examples.

- Budgeting a massive expansion of our nation's public transportation network

- Rapidly and completely withdrawing from a war on Iraq that is devastating our economy while destroying theirs

- Working for a moratorium on foreclosures

- Supporting HR 676, the single payer healthcare bill, rather than imperiously saying that single payer is "off the table"

- Restoring all the financial regulations that were included in the Glass-Steagall Act, which was slowly eviscerated by Republicans as well as Phonycrats like Bill Clinton

- Subjecting hedge funds to all the same transparency and regulations of regular mutual funds

- Repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich ASAP, given the easily observed fact that tax cuts for the rich slow the economy and helped to cause the crises we face

- Budgeting money for the Gulf Coast Civil Works Project

- Working in a calm, cooperative manner with the international community to repeal NAFTA and other corporate controlled trade agreements, including dissolving the World Trade Organization

- Strongly enforcing our nation's antitrust laws so we won't have the economic disruptions caused by huge corporations going under

- Firing Larry Summers, chief Clinton administration architect of financial deregulation and corporate controlled trade deals

These are just areas where there are deficiencies in Obama's economic policies. There are a lot of policy deficiencies in other areas too.

We need to push Obama hard, not blindly support a center-right Democrat like him. We can't afford to go along with too much of the same when the same is devastating our country. Liberals and progressives cannot afford to make the same mistake we made before of giving Bill Clinton a chance. That was a disaster. We need to fight hard no matter which politician is in office.

 

I'm catching up on my end of year giving, and I thought I would share the names some of organizations that I gave to in hopes of helping them out a bit. I know these are difficult times, but those difficulties are affecting non profits too. If you haven't been screwed over yet by the crappy right wing economy, I urge you to support some of these organizations or other groups working to make this world a better and more progressive place.

(American) Foundation for AIDS Research:
I'm not clear if the word "American" is still in the title, but amFAR has been the most activist and research oriented of the big money AIDS organizations. They won't let people forget that the world needs a cure for AIDS. Treatments for AIDS are much better than nothing, but they aren't good enough.

CommonDreams.org
I certainly complain enough about rightist bias in the corporate media. I might as well financially support independent media. Common Dreams is a wonderful progressive news and opinion aggregator. They also have a listing of press releases called Progressive Newswire which is great fodder for blog postings.

Democracy Now!
This is the best radio/tv news magazine in the country. Amy Goodman and her crew get out more information than corporate media outlets with much larger budgets. Like a lot of liberal and progressive bloggers, I regularly quote Democracy Now stories.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF):
There are lots of organizations that support state/church separation. One thing that sets FFRF apart is that they take state/church separation cases from plaintiffs who are atheists. Many other groups refuse to out of prejudice or because they are afraid that such plaintiffs cannot win. (They can and often do win.) FFRF also does excellent work educating the public about atheists and atheism.

NYC's LGBT Center:
Like a variety of queer community centers in this country, this center in Manhattan provides a central place and meeting spaces for a variety of community groups. If you can, please support your local lgbt center. If you don't have one, try asking around and seeing if there are people working on bringing one to where you live.
they make a huge difference.

Pride @ Work:
This lgbt labor group has worked hard on including gender identity in ENDA, supporting union organizing, and teaching unions how to write lgbt supportive contract. Supporting Pride @ Work is a great way to accomplish a lot of things with a single donation.

WBAI Radio:
This is one of the Pacifica Network stations in NYC. They have an excellent queer radio show, Out-FM. You can listen to WBAI online or at 99.5 FM in the NYC area to gain a variety of perspectives you won't get from corporate media outlets.

Don't give until it hurts, but please find worthwhile organizations to help get through these terrible times.

 

I am so sick of seeing political operatives using Karl Rove style spin to defend Obama's conservative appointees and Republican policy positions on avoiding a windfall profits tax for Big Oil, on continuing the endless war on Iraq, on keeping the rich from paying anywhere near their fair share in taxes, and on other important matters.

Hildebrand's Huffington Post nonsense shows why I've lost all trust and respect for the Obama administration, and they haven't even taken office yet. Look at this garbage:

I could go on and on. The point I'm making here is that our new president, the Congress and all Americans must come together to solve these problems. This is not a time for the left wing of our Party to draw conclusions about the Cabinet and White House appointments that President-Elect Obama is making. Some believe the appointments generally aren't progressive enough. Having worked with former Senator Obama for the last two years, I can tell you, that isn't the way he thinks and it's not likely the way he will lead. The problems I mentioned above and the many I didn't, suggest that our president surround himself with the most qualified people to address these challenges. After all, he was elected to be the president of all the people - not just those on the left.

This nonsense insults peoples' intelligence for a variety of reasons.

1) Executive Branch Appointments Matter
Executive branch appointees make an enormous amount of policy decisions that don't make the nightly news, but which cumulatively have a huge effect on peoples' lives. With the Obama administration already loaded up with so many rightist nutjobs, many people will suffer needlessly. Some people literally will die needlessly.

2) Liberals Gave Bill Clinton a Chance:
Does Hildebrand think liberals suffer from historical amnesia? During the transition and early in the Clinton administration, liberals were bombarded with bullshit from Clinton operatives about how we had to "give him a chance." He took that chance to govern like a rightist Reagan/Bush Republican. We have been betrayed just as badly by Phonycrats like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Any liberal who trusts a Democrat who starts governing from the right should be ashamed.

3) It's Never Premature for People to Call for the Government to Address Their Grievances.
In a democracy, people don't wait for permission from an authority figure, even one as minor as Hildebrand, to speak out. Those appointments belong to the people even more than they belong to Barack Obama. We have a right to say "no" when they represent the same administrations and interests that got our country into this terrible mess.

4) These Aren't the Most Qualified People
Let's look at this cast of losers and Clinton/Bush retreads. Robert Gates is a Bush family crony whose only "accomplishment" as Defense Secretary was repeatedly lying to the American people about the Iraq war. Hillary Clinton has very few qualifications to serve in any administration. She is just trading on her husband's name in much the same way that another empty suit in New York politics, Andrew Cuomo, has built a career on trading on his father's name. Nepotism and cronyism are not change you can believe in.

What the fuck is Larry Summers doing as Obama's senior economic adviser? The man is an arrogant, incompetent ignoramus on almost everything, and this description is especially apt in the field of economics. Summers' push for financial deregulation and corrupt, corporate trade deals like NAFTA make him one of the people most personally responsible for the Crash of 2008 and our horrible recession. These are the most glaring examples of a set of appointees who are neither qualified or even interested in taking the kinds of actions that will get us out our mess.

5) Where Is an Openly Queer Cabinet Appointee?
On of the ways that Bill Clinton discriminated against the queer community was by not appointing even one openly queer Cabinet member during his entire administration. So far, Obama is heading in the same bigoted direction.

If Rovian bs is all that liberals are going to get from the Obama administration, we need to wake up. So far, Obama has worked to continue the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush policies of the last 28 years. Obama is getting less like FDR and more like Herbert Hoover every day.

There is no way I can ever take anything Steve Hildebrand says seriously after this. What a hack.

 

I would like to thank Mauigirl's Meanderings for the Superior Scribbler Award.

I've admired Mauigirl's compassion and commitment to liberal issues, so I'm grateful to get the award from her.

Here are the rules of the award, which I'm breaking by giving it to six blogs instead of five. Bwahahahahaha! All of the blogs deserve it. So there.

*Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

*Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

* Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.

* Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post (above) and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

*Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

Letters from the Sanitarium
In addition to offering wise political analysis, this blog gives personal and political perspectives on mental illness. If you have a stereotype of the mentally ill as somehow intellectually impaired, this blog will shake that belief to its very core.

The Lesbian Said What??
Insightful analysis from this blog alone would make it worthy of an award. This blog also succeeds at something most blogs fail at pretty badly: using historical quotes. These tend to be ones you haven't read before and are more likely to teach you something than the ones on most blogs that feature quotations. The analysis is by no means limited to quotations. It includes a lot of contemporary thought and issues too.

Gold Star Mom Speaks Out
The corporate media treat military families largely as props to feed the war propaganda machine. This blog provides a more realistic view from one of the many military family members who oppose the war in Iraq.

My Two Cents
This blog seamlessly mixes queer politics with queer fun. Some people are clever. Some are smart. This blogger is both.

Queers United
This is probably the best source for queer activism, history, and terminology at the moment. It really is an intellectual treasure trove.

Unbrainwashed
Tired of all the crap you are fed by the corporate media and the politicians? Enjoy snark and reasoning that undermines the garbage. Acknowledging brainwashing in this society itself is largely taboo, which makes the blog's title especially gratifying.

As I did with the Brillante Award, I give this award out with the intent of building community among liberal and progressive blogs and showing solidarity. The quality of the blogs given the award is acknowledged too. I encourage you to visit these blogs and the recipients to pass the award onto equally deserving blogs.

 

In 2007, I posted a thank you to Ms. Sheehan for her efforts on behalf of the peace movement. Now, I'm moved to thank her again for her daring campaign against the corrupt, heterosexist, racist, war mongering Republican, Nancy Pelosi.

Sheehan got 17% of the vote, which is both impressive and disappointing. It was disappointing because it always is sad when a corrupt bigot like Pelosi gets reelected. It was impressive, given the obstacles Cindy Sheehan faced.

One of them came from many liberals. Some of them were too obsessed on the presidential election to pay attention to what was going on down the ticket. Some of them have become such blindly partisan Democrats that they are unwilling to challenge anyone who even claims to be a Democrat, even when it is a Bush Republican like Pelosi who merely pretends to be a Democrat. However, I do admire the liberals and progressives who stood up for our values by supporting Sheehan.

The biggest obstacle Ms. Sheehan faced was massive censorship of her campaign by the corporate media, which wanted Pelosi's rightist, pro-war policies to continue. I checked Google News for articles on the Sheehan campaign fairly often, and I seldom found anything other than blog postings. The lack of "mainstream" media coverage reminds me of how the corporate interests have censored other liberal candidates in the past.

17% is a start.

I hope that Ms. Sheehan will run again or that another liberal or progressive candidate will challenge Pelosi. It will be of critical importance to get involved in media action to push the corporate publications to be honest enough to cover campaigns that their owners disagree with.

Pelosi can be beaten. Liberals will just have to have the courage and the commitment to back up our values and positions.

 

Thanks to Christopher at From the Left for choosing mine as one of his seven blogs to give out the Brillante Weblog Award. His blog is a great source for news on the political campaigns and the views of Obama supporters. It also is a great place to vent when frustrated by the obnoxiousness of the right.

I accept this most awesome award

The rules for this award are as follows:

(1) Put the logo on your blog

(2) Add a link to the person who awarded you

(3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs

(4) Add links to those blogs on yours

(5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

I hereby nominate the following 7 blogs for their excellence and commitment to blogging:

Some Notes on Living:
A collective effort of transgender bloggers, Some Notes on Living has excellent analysis and information on trans issues, other queer issues, and the world in general.

Ten Percent:
This site from the UK has insight, analysis, and righteous outrage at injustice from a non-sectarian, anti-capitalist perspective. In other words, you will be exposed to news and views that get zero play in the corporate media of the US.

Queeristan:
This is a blog by queer South Asians (desis) who provide you an opportunity to learn about queer life in South Asia and queer immigrant life. Unless you are very lucky and well informed, you will get perspectives that are completely unavailable in most US media, queer or non-queer. The writing is quite lively too.

Granny Peace Brigade:
Not all blogs are about sitting in front of keyboards. The Grannies give you insight into what actual street activism is like while promoting their pro-peace point of view. They inspire me to get off my ass.

GDAEman:
This blog deserves a lot more attention. The insights and analysis on GDAEman give real substance to progressive concerns and frustrations.

Marylyn's Non-Violent Planet News Page:
Non-violence certainly deserves a better hearing than it is getting these days. Marylyn's blog helps to address. She deserves special credit for persevering with grace in spite of harassment from gun nut trolls.

Pagan Sphinx:
Arts and politics don't always mix well on blogs, but they do quite well here. Her action orientation is refreshing, compared to a blogosphere where action often gets left out of the analysis.

Gail's Tails:
The voices of Greens don't get much attention in our society, and that is a shame because they have a lot of important things to say. Gail's Tails says those things quite well. While the corporate media tries to keep you from knowing anything about Cynthia McKinney's presidential campaign, this blog will let you know why people are supporting the only woman presidential candidate and one of only two liberals running (the other being Ralph Nader).

Atheist Revolution:
Want to know more about atheist perspectives and atheist activism? This is the best blog I've seen to go as a starting place. It also gives people who are atheists excellent information and online activism opportunities.

To be honest, I couldn't be bothered to go through the painfully difficult task of trying to figure out which of these blogs are better. So, the order presented has no meaning whatsoever.

Ordinarily I avoid anything remotely memish, but this is a great way for people to publicize excellent liberal to progressive blogs. I'm hoping this will do a lot to promote community building among left of center bloggers.

Another blog I would have listed, if I hadn't seen that it already got this award is Dusty's.

It's My Right to Be Left of Center

 

CODEPINK Was Impossible for Anyone But Most of the Corporate Media to Ignore


From a CODEPINK email 8/29/08:

Yes, there were some places where we were not welcome (and even kicked out!) but most delegates embraced us with love and gratitude. They, too, are frustrated by the lack of leadership in our country when it comes to getting out of Iraq, and are ready to stand up for issues and not just candidates. Over 1,000 delegates wore or held our message, I am A Delegate for PEACE.

On our pinked up rollerblades and bicycles we painted Denver pink with PEACE. We even created a giant "Make Out Not War" aerial image with our bodies--and check out more great DNC photos here. We covered the streets with our powerful posters, designed by Favianna Rodriquez. They are now collectors' items

Unfortunately, a CODEPINK member was beaten and arrested by Denver police for videotaping an arrest of a protester from another group.

The video from the Rocky Mountain News doesn't capture her videotaping the previous arrest, but it shows the woman being knocked to the ground by a police officer's baton and then being arrested when she was being interviewed by media on scene.



The protester, Alicia Forest, was later released. According to CODEPINK, she plans on taking legal action against the Denver police.

CODEPINK will be heading to the Republican National Convention (Repugnant Nazi Carnival) next.

---

IAVW at the DNC:

From Iraq Veterans Against the War 8/28/08 (hat tip to GDAEman):

Iraq vets lead biggest successful action of DNC: push Obama toward real antiwar position

Denver, Colorado – Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) led a non-violent march of 8,000 allies, including members of Rage Against the Machine, to the front entrance of the Pepsi Center. There they delivered a letter containing their three points of unity to the Obama campaign’s veteran staff. IVAW’s three points of unity are:
1.Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq
2.Full benefits and healthcare for returning veterans
3.Reparations to the Iraqi people

More on the Protest from the Indypendent

---

Third Party and Independent Candidates

Cindy Sheehan spoke at the Open the Debates Rally:


She now refers to the Republicans and the Democrats as "the twins."

According to a Green Party press release, the scheduled speakers were:

Rosa Clemente, the recently nominated vice-presidential candidate running with former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney on the Green Party ticket, will join Ralph Nader, Matt Gonzalez, Val Kilmer, Sean Penn, Cindy Sheehan, Tom Morello, Jello Biafra, Nellie McKay, and Ike Reilly at the "Open the Debates" Super Rally on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 at 6:00 p.m. at the University of Denver Magness Arena in Denver, Colorado.

Rosa Clemente, Green Party VP candidate, also had a controversial speech during the time of the DNC. She is introduced by Green presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney.


 

Progressive Democrats of America released the results of their straw poll yesterday:

Kucinich 41%
Edwards 26%
Barak Obama 13%
Clinton 9%
Bill Richardson 5%
Joe Biden 3%
Chris Dodd 1%
Mike Gravel (less than 1%)

Despite an eight candidate field, Kucinich was fairly close to winning an outright majority in the poll and left the second place candidate far behind. Clinton couldn't break the single digits.

This shows that Ms. Clinton is very weak among progressives, even though she could become the first woman president, and, at least at the PDA events I've attended, most of the people in the organization are women. Clinton's conservative policies have alienated liberals and progressives in the party.

The poll results also offer a window into what Americans' political views might be like in the absence of right-wing corporate media propaganda. PDA members tend to be much better informed and get their information from a much broader pool of sources than the general public.

I would like to say thanks for the kind words at Some Notes on Living. More importantly, the actual blog posting brings up a very important point about "connecting dots."

Many of us liberals and progressives can get so caught up in vital, individual issues that our analysis fails to include how the issues are connected. For instance, many on the left can get so justifiably upset about what is going on in Burma that they forget to follow the money trail.

The blog also has an excellent post about a dot connector whose fame is growing, Naomi Klein. Her book, The Shock Doctrine, Rise of Disaster Capitalism, connects a lot of seemingly unrelated events and entities to show how the far right has exploited natural and human created disasters in order to ram unpopular and unwise policies down the throats of people worldwide.

In a previous posting here, I mentioned an excellent example of dot connecting by Dennis Kucinich at the YouTube/CNN Democratic Presidential Debate.

Well, we have to understand the connection between global warring and global warming. Because when we start talking about wars for oil, we're essentially keeping the same approach to energy.

Since Kucinich's statement, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now has been asking a lot of questions about the connections between "global warring and global warming." Goodman has an excellent grasp of which ideas in our society are the most significant and how to confront people on all sides of issues with their implications.