April 2008 archive

Tonight’s ‘Funkalicious Friday’ is presented with my sincerest apologies to ‘K9K’ and ‘BD’…I’m not fit to hold your usb cables….

So in the spirit of filling in on someone else’s funkalicious time slot….and with full awareness of my own lack of funkaliciousness….tonight’s installment will be dedicated to cover songs.

Dylan wrote it, Jimi rocked it….

Obligatory youtube song, some New Orleans funk from Bonnie and Sheila, danced to by a goofy fellow up north:

My mother used to use a Yiddish word as her highest praise, she’d say “That one is a mensch.”

Lots of definitions of that term, but my mother took it to mean a “human being.”

Crazy times to be a human being.  I dunno, it’s not so much that we’re suffering more than we have in human history as we are able to view what is happening globally in a way never before experienced here on planet earth.

And that has its drawbacks as well … for there is always a difference between viewing an event whether on television or in photographs or on the tubez, and actually being there.

Case in point — 9/11.  Here in the City we were all glued to our TV screens because we only had such a small view of what had happened.  Yet our view was unique and charged by the experience.  We did not have more information, but we had close-up experience that information alone, in all of its manifestations, could not convey.

So we know and we don’t know.  Crazy times.

Cross-posted from my blog at Campaign for America’s Future.

Today I wrap up my series on Progressives and Liberals, Movements and Political Parties.  In the first entry of the series, I explained what I think distinguishes progressives from modern American liberals, and the distinction to be made between a movement and the political party (or parties) through which it acts.  In the second, I went into some detail on short and long term strategies, how we can use strategic campaigning to influence more Democratic candidates to run leftward, progressive campaigns.

Before I begin in earnest, I must point out that when I write about bringing the Progressive Party to all fifty states I mean we establish presences at the local level.  The reason for this is one of practicality: you cannot hope to achieve tangible, lasting results by trying to build from the top down; the only way to build any structure is from the bottom up.  An example of why this is important is the Green Party-members have tried to go national before they had solid state-level presences and infrastructures throughout the country, and a very damaging consequences has been that it has incurred the wrath of Democrats for the 2000 electoral disaster (unfairly, to be sure, but nevertheless Greens are held responsible).  Trying to win a national-level campaign without first building the local and state infrastructures required is political suicide, not to mention foolish.

So the first step is to begin at the local level.  Seek out and establish contact with like-minded progressives, and start holding meetings.  First figure out if this is something you really want to devote your time and energy to, because if no chapter exists in your state you’ll be starting from scratch, and there is a certain level of commitment necessary to build a political party from the ground up.  Once you’ve decided that you all are set on doing this, it’s time to establish a platform on which to run (for an example, see the aforementioned first entry in this series).

After that phase has been completed, you’ll need to both create a working set of party bylaws for your state or municipality and expand your network to other, like-minded progressives.  As you grow in number, those bylaws are going to come in handy since no political party can function without the organizational structure.  You’ll also want to make clear what your short and long term objectives are.  As I wrote in the second entry of this series, you’ll want to focus on finding and running candidates in areas where Democrats don’t run, or where the Democrat is a corporate-conservative.  Your best bet, of course, is to pick the former over the latter unless circumstances dictate otherwise.  Why?  Because the overall goal for the time being is to decrease the numbers of the GOP in political office, and influence the Democrats to shift leftward.  Use your own judgment, however, as to how best to achieve this goal.

Finally, you need to find candidates.  Running for political office is not for everyone.  I don’t write this to knock anyone, but again, there is a certain level of commitment required and many people simply do not have the time, energy, or passion for politics.  So finding someone who lives and breathes politics is vital.  Once you find someone willing to take on this monumental task of running a political campaign, you need to raise money.  Election laws are set up to eliminate people who can’t raise a set amount of funds.  Speaking for myself, I think that blows, but there is a certain pragmatism to it; if you can’t convince a hundred people to donate fifty dollars, how do you expect to convince a thousand, or ten thousand?

That’s about all I can tell you here.  The rest is up to you.  If you would like more information, you could do a lot worse than to get in touch with the Vermont and Washington Progressives.

1. U.S. Preparing Military Options Against Iran
   By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post

   The nation’s top military officer said today that the Pentagon is planning for “potential military courses of action” against Iran, criticizing what he called the Tehran government’s “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq.

   Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be “extremely stressing” but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing specifically to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force.

   “It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability,” he said at a Pentagon news conference.

   Still, Mullen made clear that he prefers a diplomatic solution to the tensions with Iran and does not foresee any imminent military action. “I have no expectations that we’re going to get into a conflict with Iran in the immediate future,” he said.

   The Los Angeles Times adds Mullen believes Iran is increasing, not curbing, arms flow to Iraq. “Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said there was not a massive infusion of weapons but said over time there had been ‘a consistent increase’ in arms shipments. Speaking at a morning news conference, Mullen said weapons had been intercepted in Iraq that showed evidence of relatively recent manufacture in Iran, adding that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, would lay out a fuller account of the evidence in the weeks to come.”

   Yes, I know the U.S. has a war plan for every nation on the planet, but that’s not the point. The point is the Bush administration has been, once again, beating the drum for war with Iran more loudly. The biggest infuser of weapons to Iraq is the United States. The biggest source of foreign fighters in Iraq, next to the U.S., is Saudi Arabia. The Bush administration’s rhetoric is increasing and they are determined to have a war and almost any encounter in the Gulf could be used as a catalyst. Such as…

   The Guardian reports US military ship shoots at ‘Iranian’ boats. “A ship contracted by the US military fired warning shots towards two ‘Iranian’ boats, American defence officials said today. The Westward Venture, a cargo vessel chartered by the US department of defence, was travelling north in international waters in the central Gulf at around 8am local time yesterday when the incident took place, the US navy said… Tehran played down the incident, saying there was no confrontation. A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the boats were believed to be Iranian.”

   Yesterday it was Syria, today it is Iran. Bush is determined to have total war.

Four at Four continues below the fold…

Hi, my name is Jeffrey Lieber and before I got started on the UPROUNDERS™ program my “certain part of the male anatomy” was mere inches long, but with the help of UPROUNDERS™ my “junk” now measures a full 22 inches, or almost TWO FULL FEET!

How did I do it… and how can YOU do it too?

Well let me show YOU how UPROUNDERS™ five step program works for EVERYONE…

 It’s the sort of wee hours in Old Bombay (now known as Mumbai) as I write this.  I’m at the Taj Majal Hotel business center (google it) and can look out the window to my left and see the Gateway of India (google it).  I’m about 30 minutes this side of 3 hours at Leopold’s in Mumbai (google it).

I was in Japan three days ago.  Returning from India Monday late night (mumbai to Newark, Newark to Birmingham).

So, here’s the deal:  

  *  Bush is a fool, or worse, but Americans are good eggs, all in all (but damn shame they put/allowed an idiot in charge of their country.

  *  China will soon rule the world, but the Americans, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, Russians and South Americans will . . . eventually, be able to effectively push back.

  More. . .