February 8, 2009 archive

Docudharma Times Sunday February 8

KBR’s Shoddy Workmenship In Iraq

18 U.S. Service Members Electrocuted

Rewarded With New $35 Million Contract

In Iraq  




Sunday’s Headlines:

In search of the flesh-and-blood Abraham Lincoln

War’s Lingering Scars Slow Bosnia’s Economic Growth

British film tipped to take Berlin Film Festival by storm

Israeli Arabs fear a Gaza backlash as far right prepares for power role

Israeli elections: Be afraid. Be very afraid

Australia ablaze as bushfires kill 66, destroy 700 homes

Sri Lanka military: 10,000 civilians flee war zone

The slum, the refuge and a woman they call mama

Tainted teething syrup kills 84 babies in Nigeria

New Bolivia constitution in force

Obama’s NSC Will Get New Power

Directive Expands Makeup and Role Of Security Body

By Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, February 8, 2009; Page A01


President Obama plans to order a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Council, expanding its membership and increasing its authority to set strategy across a wide spectrum of international and domestic issues.

The result will be a “dramatically different” NSC from that of the Bush administration or any of its predecessors since the forum was established after World War II to advise the president on diplomatic and military matters, according to national security adviser James L. Jones, who described the changes in an interview. “The world that we live in has changed so dramatically in this decade that organizations that were created to meet a certain set of criteria no longer are terribly useful,” he said.

No crisis yet, but Obama finding world won’t wait for him



By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – In the midst of the presidential campaign last October, Barack Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, warned that within six months of Obama’s election, “We’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

The prediction hasn’t come true yet, but unfriendly nations and international competitors already are stepping up their efforts to challenge the young new president or at the very least get his attention.

 

USA

The next president of America?

He’s a non-drinking, non-smoking vegetarian, who went from a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford to being the charismatic mayor of the “worst city in America”. Here, Gaby Wood talks to Cory Booker about chasing robbers, saving Newark and turning down Obama

Gaby Wood

The Observer, Sunday 8 February 2009


Martin Luther King weekend, 2009. In a beautiful 19th-century church in Newark, New Jersey a young jazz musician has just performed a dizzying solo. Two days from now, the first African American president of the United States will take over the White House, and Newark – a city that has been predominantly black since the 1960s – is celebrating. Dr King’s dream has, the church service programme declares, “become reality”. As the applause mounts, a figure familiar to the assembled citizens hops into the pulpit.

“Oh!” he shouts in praise of the pianist, closing his eyes to emphasise the collective ecstasy. The congregation cheers. “Ohhhhh!” he repeats. More noise from the pews. “Can I get a witness!” he calls out, using the motivational cadences of a preacher to ride the natural rhythms of the crowd.

Late Night Karaoke

Sunday Techno Remixs

Pink Floyd – Wish you were here (techno remix)

How Will This Baby Run?

Ok, so NLinStPaul wrote an essay back in October entitled Let’s see how this baby runs … and I recall being struck by the fact Obama has built his own grass roots political machine — one that eventually helped him win the Presidency of the United States.

And today I’m reading Al Giordano’s Daily Kos diary, Bipartisanship Isn’t “Weak” and Partisanship Isn’t “Tough” and I’m bickering with some of the commenters who can’t see the forest for the trees because they got hung up on the title and the first paragraphs about approval ratings and such — bickering because they just plain missed the story, which is this:

More consequentially for the long run, he would have lost the moral authority to do what the next few days will bring: the jump-start of Organizing for America (300 of 3,200 house meetings nationwide begin today), a Monday trip to “fire up” the crowds in Indiana, a Tuesday visit to make public opinion “ready to go” in Florida (and a national media narrative set through both events), all leading up to Tuesday’s Senate vote on the Stimulus Bill and the subsequent House-Senate conference committee machinations. What the Obama camp knows – it proved this time and time again in 2008 – is that to exercise maximum force at the moment of decision means taking care to not peak too soon.

From NL’s essay:

Last Friday, the Washington Post reported on a “pep talk” that Obama gave to about 750 volunteers in Columbus, Ohio.

“We’re coming around the turn,” he said. “America recognizes that at this time in history, with so much at stake, with the economy nose-diving, with two wars and the threat of terrorism, the threat of climate change, we need to do something fundamentally different. And all of you are the shock troops.”

Obama acknowledged that his campaign is trying a new model of organizing volunteers and turning out the vote, and said it is now time “to really make this thing work.”

“We’ve been designing and we’ve been engineering and we’ve been at the drawing board and we’ve been tinkering, and we’ve been — now it’s time to just take it for a drive,” he said. “Let’s see how this baby runs.”

What will be even more exciting than seeing how this baby runs on election day, will be to see how this kind of engagement by so many people in “community organizing” changes things afterwards.

(I’m not sure the LA Times link still works but I put it in anyway).

Today it’s starting, and NL’s question will soon be answered.  Today there are folks all across the country having house parties to help work on the stimulus bill.  This is an entirely new political machine.  Like it or hate it, it’s sure something to watch.

As an aside, I found the website Giordano linked not to be very snazzy for this blogger.  I do think bloggers can help these folks on the tech end (for one thing, I don’t want to click on a state to find out information and find it’s a pdf without warning!).

I have to say, this has me curious.  Very high stakes are being played here.

Trotsky’s critique of Popular Frontism: Is it applicable for us?

Original article via trotsky.net:

The term Popular Front (or People’s Front) was coined in the 1930s and referred to an alliance of the workers’ parties (Communist and Socialist) with so-called “progressive” bourgeois parties (Liberals, Republicans, Radicals, etc.). The two classic examples of this were in France and Spain. In 1931 and again in 1936, the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) joined a coalition with bourgeois parties. The same happened in France in 1936. the Communist parties were also part of these Popular Fronts. Both the Communist and Socialist party leaderships played a treacherous role in holding back the revolutionary movement of the working class. This prepared the ground for the victory of reaction. In Spain it lead to the terrible defeat at the hands of Franco.

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