October 2010 archive

[Updated below after the click]

Forgive my inability to fully express the depth of grief I feel.

For Omar.

For justice. For peace.

For a future for my daughter and all our children sold off to the highest bidder.

God help us all.

I have a ton of things on the desk at the moment, and I don’t have the time to really run out this story before Election Day, but I want to bring to your attention something very strange that I found on the 2008 “Christine O’Donnell for Senate” MySpace page.

What it basically comes down to is that the United States Marine Corps and the United States Army are “Christine O’Donnell for Senate” MySpace friends, or that there are persons who have created United States Army and USMC MySpace pages that purport to be official that have “befriended” her candidacy. There’s also a Navy page that appears to emanate from a US Navy recruiting office in California on her ’08 campaign’s “friends” list.

At a minimum, all of this would seem to be a combination of inappropriate behavior and poor management of social media; at worst, you have activity that is “some kind of unlawful”, either on an administrative or civil level.

I’ll make this fast…but I’ll also make it interesting.

Follow along, and you’ll see what I mean.

Some chump is currently celebrating Obama’s “fine form” on the front page of Daily Kos, in a review of the President’s speech October 22 at USC.

All in all, the president was in fine form, and he hasn’t lost his mojo.

Mojo and fine form! That’s what Daily Kos was boosting month after month in the primaries! What else could you ask for in a candidate for President of the United States? Looks good on TV! Nothing else matters!

Who cares what kind of drivel Mojo Obama mindlessly repeats?

A choice between hope and fear. Moving forwards or going backwards. And Trojans, I want to move forward.

Did you hear that, Trojans?

Mojo wants to move forward! And if you missed it at USC, you could have heard exactly the same meaningless blather June 2 in Pittsburgh.

We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward. And I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward.

And July 9 in Las Vegas…

This is the choice between falling backwards and moving forwards, and I don’t know about you but Harry Reid wants to move forward, I want to move forward, I think most people in Nevada want to move forward, they don’t want to go backwards.

Forward! Forward! Forward!

That guy talks about moving forward so much, he almost sounds like a progressive.

But he isn’t.

And apparently Obama and Daily Kos haven’t noticed that for millions of Americans, “forward” means…

Forward into foreclosure!

Lenders seized more U.S. homes this summer than in any three-month stretch since the housing market began to bust in 2006.

Forward into unemployment!

Joshua Shapiro of MFR Incorporated points out that today’s jobs report also contained revisions for the March 2009-March 2010 period. Those revisions show that the job market was in even worse shape than previously thought.

Forward into homelessness!

With cold weather just weeks away, the District of Columbia has shelved a plan to expand its already packed shelter for homeless families at the former D.C. General Hospital, a decision that advocates fear could leave vulnerable families even worse off than last winter.

Forward into war!

Sgt. Tamara Sullivan pulled out her cellphone charger and braced for a night of tears. She called her children in North Carolina, ages 3 and 1, and told them she would soon be going to work in a place called Afghanistan. For a year. She reminded her husband to send her their artwork. She cried, hung up, called him back and cried some more.

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Muse in the Morning

Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.

Fishface

Imagine if your actions made the difference in electing a Senator, Governor, or Congressional representative? Suppose the phone calls you made, money you donated, doors you knocked on, and conversations you initiated helped swing a critically close race, or two or three. Suppose the friends you dragged to the polls helped America reject the anonymous corporate dollars that threaten to drown our democracy?

You’d feel pretty good, I believe, at least about your own efforts. So why aren’t more of us doing everything we can from now through the election to ensure the best possible outcome?  In 2008, millions of people reached deep and then deeper to stake our time, money, and hearts on the possibility of change. We knew it was a critical election, and helped carry Obama and the Democrats to victory.  Now, too many of us feel burned and disillusioned, with dashed hopes. We’ve lost the habit of being engaged. The election seems someone else’s problem. We doubt what we do will matter–for this round or in general.