“Voluntary early retirement papers” that is, and note my convention of enclosing evil Orwellian doublespeak phrases in quotation marks.
August 2008 archive
Aug 29 2008
The Democratic Party and the Politics of Lesser Evilism
The Democratic Party and the Politics of Lesser Evilism, and International Socialist Organization web book, via internationalsocialist.org:
This book traces the history of the Democratic Party as a party of Southern slaveholders, a party of big business, and as a party playing on populist themes in order to win the votes of workers and the oppressed. He also looks at the party’s latest, neoliberal incarnation under Clinton and the “new Democrats.” As Selfa shows, the party has always played the role of coopter of any left alternative outside the limited framework of the two-party system. Selfa argues convincingly that the current “Anybody But Bush” mantra that has gripped many on the left has once again set back the struggle to organize a genuine independent left political alternative in the United States.
Aug 29 2008
Dreaming The Dream Making History
Dreams give us hope. They inspire us to reach heights of creativity and invention that we believed were not possible. Dreams help us through are most desperate times because they allow us to see a future that is beyond the place we presently occupy. Dreams are not just personal moments they can also be public.
Public, being that we allow others dreams to be our dreams by embracing them as if they belonged to us this has happened throughout the history of America. In recent history its been people like Franklin Roosevelt who offered America and Americans a New Deal and delivered it. Roosevelt brought electricity to rural America, created the Social Security Administration providing all Americans with a social safety net something no previous administration had ever done. Rosa Parks a seamstress living in Alabama and a Civil Rights Activist who refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery Alabama to a white customer setting the stage for the Montgomery bus boycott and the furtherance of the civil rights movement. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King who inspired by the ideals of Gandhi and his use of nonviolence to achieve his goals applied those same principles to the American Civil Rights Movement inspiring millions to join his cause. President John F. Kennedy a man who just didn’t allow Americans to dream but inspired millions around the world to dream. How popular was he? So popular that his picture could find in the most unexpected places in the world be, it in America, Europe or Africa. So popular that he gave a speech to 10’s of thousands West Berliners at the Brandenburg gate one of the most famous speeches ever given.
All of these people and millions more had one common thread among them. They dared to dream. Dreams sometimes which others believed to be impossible but they still dreamt they could be reached.
So, yesterday not only did a dream come true but history was made when Barack Obama was nominated by the Democratic Party to be their presidential nominee. He is the first person of African American heritage or African decent in either America or Europe to be given the opportunity to be the leader of a major political or economic power.
Dreams can come true and Barack Obama has proven just that.
Aug 28 2008
Four at Four
-
Reuters reports Gustav threatens Jamaica. “Jamaicans deserted the streets and government offices closed as a strengthening Tropical Storm Gustav took aim at the island on Thursday on a path toward the Gulf of Mexico oil fields as a powerful hurricane…
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal put New Orleans residents on alert for possible evacuations from Friday, the third anniversary of Katrina’s strike.”According to The Times-Picayune, New Orleans isn’t ready yet for another hurricane. The Area’s flood shield still has danger zones.
If Gustav heads into southeast Louisiana, scientists and engineers agree that large swaths of the region could be at great risk of flooding from even a moderate storm surge, especially neighborhoods near the Industrial Canal and on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish…
Almost $13 billion in work remains to be done before the region is protected from a 100-year storm — about the size of Hurricane Rita — and that means much of the hurricane protection system remains at risk…
The system’s Achilles heel remains the Industrial Canal area, where $695 million worth of structures are planned… But that work, still being designed, won’t start to provide any storm surge protection until this time next year.
Three years to make a positive difference, but the Bush administration comes up empty handed. Now if Gustav makes landfall as a hurricane, people likely will be killed by a storm in New Orleans… again.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are wondering if they should push back their convention one week so John McCain can accept his party’s nomination on September 11th. According to Fox Noise, Gustav threatens RNC plans. “Mindful of the pitfalls of hosting cocktail parties while Gulf Coast residents are being evacuated, John McCain’s campaign suggested Thursday that Republicans could postpone their upcoming national convention in St. Paul if Tropical Storm Gustav makes landfall over the weekend.”
Which Bush administration failure does McCain wish to associate with? 9/11 or Katrina? My guess is 9/11, but then who can say? The Republicans chose to celebrate the nation’s crumbling infrastructure by holding their fĂȘte in the Twin Cities.
Four at Four continues the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan, Putin feeding Georgia conspiracy theories, and investigations, er a whole lot of nothing, from Congress.
Aug 28 2008
50
I might not be around much tomorrow, having some plans re celebrating spending a half a century on this beautiful little planet, so I thought I would take today to condense what I have learned during my sentence time here on earth.
Tinfoil doesn’t work.
Apples straight off of the tree are very tasty.
The beauty of sunsets and sunrises are impossible to describe, paint, or otherwise capture, so don’t even try.
Tomatoes are not, as once was believed, poisonous.
There IS nothing to fear but fear itself.
Assholes are everywhere, and it is a choice to be one or not.
There is….gasp! …an unconscious but very real conspiracy by the rich and powerful to stay rich and powerful and to help their friends stay rich and powerful.
Sanctimony, hypocrisy and moral relativism are more common than ants.
There is no spoon.
There are, for some reason though, sporks.
Aug 28 2008
Sorted by race
As many of us have been reveling in the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream Speech” and the nomination of an African American man to be President of the United States, our country continues to practice some of the most egregious human rights violations we’ve seen in the last 40-50 years.
I expect the people of Postville, Iowa woke up on Tuesday morning with heavy hearts, knowing exactly what so many in Laurel, MS were feeling the day after an ICE raid in which almost 600 people were arrested and jailed. It seems that, as far as ICE, the Justice Department, and Bushco, Postville was such a great succes that it is likely to be repeated all over the country.
Aug 28 2008
Show this picture everywhere
Tomorrow, the whole world will watch as John McCain introduces and appears with his running mate as the Republican ticket in public for the first time. The timing of the announcement is meant to achieve four key goals for the McCain campaign:
1) Keep Obama/Biden from getting the kajillion point bounce they need for the Democratic National Convention to be considered a success.
2) Dominate the weekend news cycle.
3) Generate a little excitement for the moribund Republican Party heading into their dirgefest national convention.
4) Distract us all from an important anniversary.
Aug 28 2008
The Obama-Biden Worldview
Paul Jay, CEO of The Real News, in a three way interview with Phyllis Bennis, Eric Margolis and Paul Heinbecker, discusses and dissects the foreign policy mindset and worldview we can expect from an Obama-Biden Administration…
August 28, 2008 – 12 min 45 sec
Phyllis Bennis is a Senior Analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. She is the author of Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis and Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power. Her newest book Understanding the US-Iran Crisis: A Primer will be available in September 2008.
Eric Margolis is a journalist born in New York City and holding degrees from Georgetown the University of Geneva, and New York University. During the Vietnam War he served as a US Army infantryman. Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the World — The Struggle for Afghanistan and Asia is a syndicated columnist and broadcaster whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, Mainichi Shimbun and US Naval Institute Proceedings.
Paul Heinbecker joined the Department of External Affairs (Canada) immediately after graduation, and received postings abroad in Ankara, Stockholm, and Paris. From 1989 to 1992, Heinbecker served as Chief Foreign Policy Advisor and speechwriter for Prime Minister of Canada Brian Mulroney, and as Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet for Foreign and Defence Policy. In 1992, he was appointed ambassador to Germany. In the late 1990s, he organized the task force on the Kosovo conflict, and served as head of the Canadian delegation to the Climate Change Convention in Kyoto. In 2000, Heinbecker was appointed as Ambassador to the United Nations. There he was a strong proponent of the International Criminal Court and argued for compromise in the lead-in to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.
Aug 28 2008
Remarks of Two OEF and OIF Veterans, DNC 2008, and Success!
In case you missed these powerful words from Two of our Countries Dedicated Veterans of the Current Occupation Theaters.
Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan can be Proud of these two, your brother and sister Veterans, as can the Families of All who are Serving and have Served, for You All are the Only Ones Sacrificing as this Country refuses to understand that Sacrifice!
The ‘Honorable Cause’ is the protection of your brother’s and sister’s as they protect you, in any conflict theater this nation sends those that serve it, wrong or right!
This Country must Now make it Right for All of You, it has Shirked It’s Full Responsibility for far too long, from Korea to the Present Day, that must End!!
Aug 28 2008
Docudharma Times Thursday August 28
To The Media: I’m Sorry That The
Democrats United Behind Barack Obama
I’m Sure You’ll Make Up Some Other
Ridiculous Controversy Straight Out Of Your
Little Imaginations I Have Faith In You
Obama Wins Nomination; Biden and Bill Clinton Rally Party
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: August 27, 2008
DENVER – Barack Hussein Obama, a freshman senator who defeated the first family of Democratic Party politics with a call for a fundamentally new course in politics, was nominated by his party today to be the 44th president of the United States.
The unanimous vote made Mr. Obama the first African-American to become a major party nominee for president. It brought to an end an often-bitter, two-year political struggle for the nomination with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, standing on a packed convention floor electric with anticipation, moved to halt the roll call in progress so that the convention could nominate Mr. Obama by acclamation. That it did with a succession of loud roars, followed by a swirl of dancing, embracing, high-fiving and chants of “Yes, we can.”
Black Delegates Also Bask in Obama’s Big Moment
?
By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 28, 2008; Page A23
DENVER, Aug. 27 — Lena Taylor, a Wisconsin state senator from Milwaukee, is “overwhelmed” by the history that will be made Thursday night, when Sen. Barack Obama will become the first African American to accept a major-party presidential nomination. Add in that his acceptance will come on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, that it has been 40 years since Robert F. Kennedy predicted the country might elect a black president in four decades, and that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy made a dramatic appearance here this week, and the symbolism boggles her mind
USA
Businesses Cite a Catch-22 After Miss. Immigration Raid
By Spencer S. Hsu, Alejandro Lazo and Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 28, 2008; Page A01
The arrests this week of nearly 600 immigrant workers at a manufacturing plant in Laurel, Miss., are fueling a national debate over a federal system to check new hires’ work documents, a program whose expansion the Bush administration has made a cornerstone of its fight against illegal immigration.In what they called the largest immigration sweep at a single site in U.S. history, federal agents raided a Howard Industries electrical transformer plant Monday despite the fact that the company last year joined the work eligibility system, called E-Verify.
Aug 28 2008
Muse in the Morning
Muse in the Morning |
ever meditative and steadfastly persevering,
alone experience Nirvana,
the incomparable freedom from bondage.
–The Dhammapada, verse 23
Phenomena XXXI: musing
Seeds
|