January 2010 archive

It is entirely possible that in Tuesday’s special election the Institutional Democratic Party is going to cough up the seat Ted Kennedy held for 50 years.

Why is that?

Because they are fundamentally failures and want an excuse for not delivering.

But it’s not all bad.

I see people despairing and thinking we aren’t having any effect when nothing could be further from the truth.

They are very, very afraid.

They’re afraid we will spit in their soup and they should be.  They’re afraid we won’t buy their crap anymore and we won’t.

They’re afraid of pitchforks and torches but I’m not advocating that.

What I do think is that progressive people have been in an abusive relationship for years, bullied by perfectly good enemy talk into thinking that the enemy of their enemy is their friend.

I have permanent interests.

There comes a time when you have to stand up and say no when everyone else just runs away.  There comes a time when you have to admit that your bruises are not because you are “clumsy” and “undiplomatic”.

Below the fold is a letter from jail that I think is worth remembering.

Open Thread

NOT SO FUNNY

Manzai comedian Tamotsu Kuroda of the popular duo Messenger was arrested for beating a 23-year-old restaurant manager in Osaka and causing “a serious facial fracture.”

During a TV Asahi talk show, postal reform minister Shizuka Kamei revealed a private discussion he’d had with the emperor. Apparently, disclosing that kind of thing is a no-no.

Kamei said he suggested that the emperor move to Kyoto or Hiroshima, to which the emperor reportedly replied, “I like Kyoto.”

One of the 11 participants chosen to attend the traditional New Year poetry reading at the Imperial Palace on January 14 said she “became weak at the knees from joy and nervousness” when told of the news.

A former executive at a Chiba-based marriage agency called Web Corp. was busted for selling personal data of 11,000 male and 5,000 female customers. If you ask us, the real crime is that this company gets away with charging a ¥3 million joining fee and a ¥200,000 commission for “marriage support.”

When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way …

This isn’t really about being a visionary, even though I am a visionary.  I’m not claiming to be an impressive or gifted visionary, just that I have visions.  Honest.  No bigee.

I’ve been both writing and talking about a level of politics I’ve never had the stomach for, power politics.  Well I don’t even know if that label is correct.

And this ties in somehow with jeffroby’s Full Court Press.

This eighth installment of the Original v. Cover series appears one day early this week for perhaps the most compelling of reasons – Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on this day in 1929. Had his life not been tragically ended on April 4, 1968, he could conceivably have celebrated his 81st birthday on this day.  

Today we celebrate the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s remarkable accomplishments; however, cannot escape wondering what may have been were he still alive today. Although King would most likely be encouraged by the progress that has been achieved since his time, his optimism would no doubt be tempered by an ample measure of concern as well.  

Would he have celebrated the seating of an African-American on the Supreme Court at the behest of a Republican president, no less, on October 18, 1991? Would he have considered his mission to be accomplished with the election of an African-American to the highest office in this land, a term which began slightly less than one year ago on January 20, 2009? Or would his feelings, at best, be mixed?

King would undoubtedly have had much to say about those topics.  And his concerns would without question be shared by many perusing this diary.

If you are truly interested in the meaning of King’s life and what it meant for this country, please consider going to the following wikipedia article, which can be found here. If we choose to listen, we will soon discover that he was not speaking just to the people of that day, but to posterity as well.  His message resonates as much if not more so than it did nearly a half a century ago.

Much will be written and said about the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. during this weekend. Those whose abilities far exceed this writer’s humble talents will bring his memory to life for those who slow down long enough to remember, and in some cases, with a combination of fear and courage, consider the challenges that he sets before us in our own time.

For those in want of a quick refresher, here is one of the many excerpts from King’s August 28, 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, fittingly delivered at the Lincoln Memorial. Fewer among us may be aware that the content of this speech was toned down in response to the concerns of the then president, John F. Kennedy. Malcolm X was among those critical of this event, referring to it as “the farce on Washington.”  

While it is true that our system has a winner take all voting system, which means the candidate with the most votes wins irrespective of whether they have even 50% of the vote, and it is true that by voting 3rd party the candidate you least like might win, it doesn’t mean you are not having any effect. You can still use your third party vote to purify the major party of a corrupt candidates, which can make a difference in the long run. Also if enough people vote for the third party it can replace one of the two major parties which is what happened in the 1850’s with the republicans replacing the whigs. Third parties can also win. Look at Jessie Ventura.

It is true that you can agitate to change the voting system, but you must go through politicians that were successful with the old way to get something new. Not a likely prospect in my view.

It is true that you can technically run primary challenges, and get some changes, but if those are so easy to run, why hasn’t anyone run them on a mass scale, that I believe is needed to get reall changes? In reality there are tremendous structural barriers to runnng any kind of primary fight, otherwise people would do more than talk and threaten them. This talk of running primaries has been happening for ten years, and nobody in the final analysis does them.

The people who voted Nader in 2000 may not have helped but they didn’t hurt anything either. The war probably would have happened either way. Lieberman was Al Gore’s pick for vp. Martin Peretz was Al Gore’s mentor. Many dlcers like Gore voted for the Iraq war resolution including Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and John Edwards. Obama claimed he would have voted against the resolution, but Obama has claimed to be for, or against many things, that didn’t pan out in reality, because of his commitment to dlc policies. For instance, during the campaign, Obama claimed to be against mandates and excise taxes on cadillac plans. How did that work out in reality. He claimed to be against fisa but voted for it. He claimed to oppose corporate lobbying, and the revolving door, but hired a bunch of Goldman Sachs employees to serve him in his administration. He also claimed to be against the Iraq war, but never missed an opportunity to vote for war funding.

Nader voting changed nothing, in my view, but it did offer and opportunity to vote for someone who told the truth. I so wish I hadn’t bought the lesser evil bs and wasted my vote on Gore, than Kerry and now Obama. The democrats have mislead people for far too long. Obama proves Nader was completely correct, and those of us who sympathized with Nader literally wasted 8-9 years working our butts off for democrats who hate us, and think we are idiots.

While it is true that Lieberman is a leader of these bad dems, it is not true, that lessor dems like Coakley who take money from the insurance companies, and who support mandates bare no responsibility. By only targeting the big sharks, you let little sharks like her off the hook and they continue to vote for the wrong things. You partisans claim that not giving them a 60th seat will be permission to move to the right, but they are already moving to the right so it looks like the mere act of putting right leaning dems in office is permission enough. You claim we don’t vote for Coakley we wont’ have another shot at reform for a generation, yet we are suppose to believe you will come back and improve the bill later on? Come on! We aren’t self-defeating. We are beaten down by corruption! Beating us more won’t help!

reposted from my blog http://dameocrat.blogspot.com