"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Pennsylvania State House, August 1, 1776
This is why the economy is going to be a huge factor in this year's elections. With everything that is going on, the Republicans seriously think the answer to the average American's problems is a $600 check and more tax cuts for the wealthy.
The underlying story here is that the economy is slowing down faster than they expected.By November we may be in a full blown recession.
President expresses hope tax rebates will boost weaker economy
WASHINGTON - President Bush says the economic-stimulus tax rebates will begin going out Monday and will help people cope with lofty energy and food prices, as well as giving the economy a jolt. ...
“This money is going to help Americans offset the high prices we’re seeing at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and will also give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown,” Bush said Friday in brief remarks at the White House. ...
“It’s obvious our economy is in a slowdown,” Bush said.
Earlier this week, the president denied the nation was in a recession, instead saying, “We are in a slowdown.” But many economists believe the economy may already be in a recession.
A trio of crises — housing, credit and financial — has threatened to plunge the economy deep into recession.
The economy grew at an anemic 0.6 percent in the final three months of last year and is believed to have gotten even weaker in the first three months of this year. The government will report on the first quarter’s performance next week. A growing number of analysts believe the economy is shrinking now.
But of course it doesn't happen in real life. This is an awesome scene from Boston Legal where Alan argues before the Supreme Court against the death penalty for a non-homicide case. He also takes time out to say what millions of Americans are thinking about their job performance lately.
The Democrats had better learn how to define John Sidney McCain III and quick or they are going to lose this election. John McCain is not a "war hero"; he is a victim of torture.
He is victim of torture who was broken, physically and mentally and cooperated with the enemy because of it! That makes him someone I feel very sorry for but it doesn't make him a hero.
I have to give the Cons credit where it is due, they mastered the art of Framing the Debate years ago and the corporate media has been using it unseen in plain sight for decades. In his book, "Don't Think Of An Elephant", Dr. George Lakoff explains that framing the debate is the most important political trick that the Democrats and Progressives need to become familiar with if they want to compete with the Cons. In his book, Dr. Lakoff uses the example of the Frame of the "Tax Burden" and how that simple phrase immediately puts taxes in the position of being something unwanted that needs to be reduced and how that has effected public perception of the debate over time.
Lets look at another more recent example in today's news:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The employers cut payrolls for a third month in a row in March, slashing 80,000 jobs for the biggest monthly job decline in five years as the economy headed into a downturn, government data on Friday showed.
The Labor Department revised the first two months of the year's job losses to a total of 152,000 from a previous estimate of 85,000. The March unemployment rate jumped to 5.1 percent from 4.8 percent, the highest since a matching rate in September 2005.
The March job report was more bleak than expected. Economists polled ahead of the report forecast a decline of 60,000 in non-farm payrolls and a rise in the unemployment rate to 5 percent.
During the first quarter of this year job losses averaged 77,000 a month, compared to average monthly gains of 76,000 in the last half of 2007, according to Keith Hall, Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner.
Job losses were widespread during the month, with the biggest losses in the construction and manufacturing sectors.
(Reporting by Joanne Morrison; Editing by Neil Stempleman)
huh? Now... My dog "sheds" her extra fur. I may "shed" my coat if I get hot. We all try to "shed" some extra pounds.
This headline makes it sound like the economy was just getting rid of some extra jobs it didn't need or want anymore.
The thing is, more people read just the headline than will ever read the entire article, so everybody in the newspaper business understands the importance of the headlines and how they can be used to frame things, even if it is contrary to the content of the actual articles.
I found that part at the end particularly interesting because I am curious to know who is responsible for that headline, the reporter or the "editor".
This one was particularly funny since the first paragraph reads as follows:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. personal income rose more than expected in February as the economy teetered on the brink of a recession, while both personal spending and a key price measure increased only slightly, a government report showed on Friday.
Obviously there is someone at Reuters who believes that they need to "moderate" the headlines they put on their newswire, thus the conspicuous "editing" in so many of their articles by people like Mr. Stempleman.
Apparently the people at Reuters don't think we, the American people, can handle the unvarnished truth and they think they need to sugar-coat everything to the point of twisting its meaning in the headline.
Of course this beggars the question, Who owns Reuters?
Well, it turns out they just recently got bought by the Thompson Corporation, a Multinational Conglomerate who makes about $3 Billion worth of profit in the Financial sector each year.
This is an interesting photo I found. It shows Rev. Wright treating President Johnson when he was in the Navy and shows the letter he got thanking him for helping the President.
The GOP has been trying to rewrite history, claiming "Saddam would not let the inspectors back in" to justify invading Iraq.
Unfortunately for them, we have a little something called "video tape". Clips of UN/UNMOVIC inspectors in Iraq destroying Saddam's stockpile of al-Samoud missiles in the MONTHS just prior to the invasion of Iraq before President Bush orders everyone out of Iraq the week before the invasion on March 19, 2003.
I would think the corporate media would be giving this more coverage, since a lot of that money would end up in their hands. General Electric, who owns NBC, also owns defense companies that could be losing money over this.
Is he admitting that terrorism is not the problem that he has been hyping it to be?
The Bush Administration wants to cut Homeland Security money to cities across the country.
According to papers obtained by the Associated Press, the administration wants to reduce anti-terrorism funding by more than 50% next year.
States that expected to get more than $3 billion to protect against terrorist attacks would get $1.4 million instead.
It could mean agencies that have bought high-tech rapid response trucks, as Tucson has done, may not have the money to maintain the equipment years down the road.
Under the Republican Administration, as our country has prospered, so have its people. This is as it should be, for as President Eisenhower said: "Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America."Today that kind of talk sends Republicans into convulsions, sputtering on about tax cuts and wealth trickling down. Wealth is created from the ground up. There is no capital without labor. Republicans used to get it.
The Eisenhower Administration has brought to our people the highest employment, the highest wages and the highest standard of living ever enjoyed by any nation. Today there are nearly 67 million men and women at work in the United States, 4 million more than in 1952. Wages have increased substantially over the past 3 1/2 years; but, more important, the American wage earner today can buy more than ever before for himself and his family because his pay check has not been eaten away by rising taxes and soaring prices.(Eisenhower was able to do this with a 91% top tax rate for any wages over $3.2 million a year in todays dollars. This is precisely what Reagan declared war on by lowering the top tax rate for Millionaires and Billionaires and raising the social security tax, which has a cap on it, so it is only paid by the middle and lower classes.)
The record of performance of the Republican Administration on behalf of our working men and women goes still further. The Federal minimum wage has been raised for more than 2 million workers. Social Security has been extended to an additional 10 million workers and the benefits raised for 6 1/2 million. The protection of unemployment insurance has been brought to 4 million additional workers. There have been increased workmen's compensation benefits for longshoremen and harbor workers, increased retirement benefits for railroad employees, and wage increases and improved welfare and pension plans for federal employees.All policies that worked. Policies that created the strongest middle class in the history of the world. All policies that the Republicans now oppose. Hows that working out for them?
In addition, the Eisenhower Administration has enforced more vigorously and effectively than ever before, the laws which protect the working standards of our people. I can't even remember a time when Republicans gave a shit about the working standards of our people.
Workers have benefited by the progress which has been made in carrying out the programs and principles set forth in the 1952 Republican platform. All workers have gained and unions have grown in strength and responsibility, and have increased their membership by 2 millions. They are trumpeting the fact that union membership grew under Eisenhower's administration. Ironically, it is these very same strong unions the Republicans created that they now wage war on.
In the course of playing political "king of the hill" to see which state in the union can have their primary or caucus first this year, we ended up with the Presidential primaries (which normally happen in the spring) happening immediately after New Years and throughout January until culminating in "Tsunami Tuesday" on February 5th when over 20 states will have their primaries on the same day. Then we get to look forward to nine months of hard core negative Presidential campaigning instead of the normal three months.
In the middle of all that fun, the Michigan Democratic Party went and broke National Party rules about not infringing on the "importance" of Iowa and New Hampshire and decided to have our primary before February 5th. In response, the National Democratic Party has announced that they will not seat any delegates from Michigan at the National Convention.
If that happens, it means that Michigan will have no say in deciding who the Democratic candidate will be.
Also, because we moved our primary before Feb 5th, Barak Obama and John Edwards both inexplicably decided to pull their names from the ballot in Michigan completely, essentially handing Michigan over to Hillary on a silver platter.
So here we are... Michigan's primary is going to be January 15th, this coming Tuesday, and Michigan progressives are still unsure who to vote for.
Even if my vote does count the only major candidate I have to choose from is Hillary Clinton and she is not my first, second or even third choice. Any vote I cast for Kucinich or Dodd would essentially be nothing more than a protest vote.
So essentially there is a game of chicken going on between the Michigan Democratic Party and the National Democratic Party. So far the National Party has given no indication that they intend to back down from their stated intention of refusing to seat our delegates and all we have is the assurance of the Michigan Party leadership that they "wouldn't dare" refuse to seat our delegates at the convention.
If I do go vote in the Democratic Primary...
...and if I vote "uncommitted" because my preferred candidate, John Edwards, is not on the ballot...
...and if our delegates get seated at the national convention... then there is still no telling how the delegates I send there are going to vote. It could end up going to Mike Gravel for all I know.
What is important to me is to use my vote to its greatest effect. Normally that is simply voting for my candidate of choice but this situation has created quite a conundrum for me.
I could go vote for Hillary but I have been saying all along that she is my least favorite candidate and as long as there are other candidates out there whom I would rather vote for, I do not think I should go contribute to handing my state over to their competitor.
I could go vote for Dennis Kucinich, who I agree with on most issues and who I think would be a great President. Normally I would think that supporting Dennis would be the best use of my vote, but given the situation with the Democratic delegates from Michigan, it would be a gamble.
So...why not go vote in the Republican primary? At least they are guaranteed half of their delegates at their national convention. I may not be a Republican but I can take advantage of Michigan’s open primary system to possibly have some positive effect on them.
If I go vote in the Republican primary for Ron Paul, and he has a strong enough showing in Michigan to at least get a few delegates, then it may send a strong message to the Republican Party that Ron Paul's anti-war message resonates with their base and it might move them ever-so-slightly to the left, away from the edge of fascism and totalitarianism they are currently teetering over.
The fact is that on some issues Ron Paul is even farther to the left than any of the Democratic candidates. Ron Paul is the only candidate on the Republican side even talking about the Constitution and the Legislative branch’s responsibility to check the power of the Executive branch. He is bringing some small measure of sanity back to the Republican Party and he deserves to be supported by progressives for that reason alone. If I want to move the discussion in the direction that I want it to go, then I have to support the people talking about the subjects I want to talk about, no matter what party I find them in.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a Ron Paul supporter. I actually wrote an article not that long ago entitled "Why Ron Paul is Unfit to be President". I agree with him on some issues, like Congress’ responsibilities in declaring war and how we should not be putting military bases on foreign soil all over the world and how wars of aggression are wrong. However, Ron Paul also thinks that corporations should be allowed to police themselves and he believes that the best educational system is home schooling. Those are pretty clear reasons to oppose him, which is why I did until recently.
Rob Kall wrote an interesting endorsement of Ron Paul over at OpEdNews recently where he made some good points. Even if Ron Paul got elected President, the only things he would actually have the authority to change would be those matters of war and peace where I do agree with him. He would not have the authority to do any of the other stupid things he wants to do. As Commander in Chief he could pull our troops out of all the bases around the world and save us billion of dollars. However, getting rid of the IRS or FDA would require an act of Congress and he wouldn’t be likely to get that much cooperation from either the Republicans or Democrats on that.
If I went and voted in the Republican primary for Mitt Romney, and he won, he would continue both the occupation of Iraq and conservative policies of disaster capitalism. At least with Ron Paul, he would end one of the two worst mistakes in modern American history.
So as I see the situation;
Since I can’t vote for the candidate I want...
And since there is a good chance any protest vote I make within the Democratic Party will be a complete waste of time...
...the best use of my vote this week may actually be to go vote in the Republican Primary for Ron Paul. At least I could do my part to push the Republican Party, and therefore the entire political discourse in America, to the left.
With all the disgruntled Democratic voters who may flood the Republican Primary this year, the outcome could be very interesting.
Perhaps it is Providence. Perhaps the Great Michigan Primary Debacle of 2008 is really an opportunity in disguise.
Perhaps this whole mess is an opportunity for Michigan Progressives to use their votes for something even more important, saving America by saving the Republicans from themselves.
The calls for hearings on Dick Cheney's high crimes has cracked the mainstream media. A number of newspapers have agreed to publish an Op-ed by Congressman Wexler about why we need these hearings.
This is hilarious. I have played D&D since I was little. Hell, I still play D&D when I can and I still think this is hilarious. It is a stereotype, of course, and as such it holds about as much truth as most stereotypes. Role Playing Games in general are a lot of fun and people of all walks of life play them. They require a lot more imagination on the part of the player then most video games.
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself." - Thomas Paine
I believe that all humans are created equal.
I believe that all humans have inalienable rights regardless of their race, gender, religion, age or sexual orientation.
I believe in effective government. Smaller government for the sake of smaller government is ineffective government.
I believe that man is essentially good and that government is created to help man achieve his fullest potential.
I believe that I am my brother's keeper and that we are all in this together.
I believe in Democracy. I believe in the ability of educated people to govern themselves using reason and conscience.
I know that an educated citizenry is necessary to a functioning Democracy.
I know that only an unbiased media can serve as a fourth estate in the checks and balances of our government.
I believe that one purpose of government is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves. That means building the things necessary for civilized society, such as infrastructure, schools, roads, power lines, courts and the institutions to maintain them. That means protecting the people from military attack, crime and from exploitation by their fellow man. It means helping the people after natural disasters. It means enforcing laws and setting standards for our society. It means maintaining a floor below which we do not allow our fellow citizens to fall. It means inspecting our food and it means maintaining the quality of our air and our water.
I believe in regulated capitalism. I believe that a free market can only exist with the regulation and oversight of government. A market without government regulation is a black market.
I believe that taxes are the dues we pay to live in a civilized society.
I think that cutting taxes without cutting spending is reckless and foolish.
I believe that conservative "borrow and spend" economic policies are suicidal.
I believe that true freedom of religion means allowing people to worship any god they choose and no god if they so choose. I believe that if the government were to give any one religion favor over others it sets a precedent that is dangerous to all religious liberty.
I believe in the power of diplomacy.
I believe that war is a last resort.
I believe that the key to winning the fight against radical Islam is to liberalize their society. We need to give them jobs not guns. We need to put them to work rebuilding their countries. We need to win their hearts and minds and we will never do that with bombs and bullets.
I believe we are a nation of laws, not men.
I believe in the Constitution and what it represents as a contract between the governing and the governed and a written boundary which includes checks and balances.
I believe it is the duty, not the political convenience, of elected representatives to hold their fellow branches of government accountable when high crimes and misdemeanors and subversion of the Constitution are happening right in front of their eyes.
Lastly, I believe in the right of human beings to throw off oppressive government when it no longer represents their best interests.
This is a new television spot from John Edwards. In my opinion, it shows why John Edwards would be the best candidate. He is a leader, who inspires people, not a boss who makes demands, which is what we have now and is what the Republicans are offering more of.
The corporate media has apparently decided Hillary Clinton has won the Democratic primary before the first vote has ever been cast. I cannot say why the corporate media is reporting Hillary as the presumptive nominee. It is blatant and shameless at this point. Last Sunday, on Meet the Press, they were discussing who the candidates might choose as their Vice President and they talked about every Republican candidate and Hillary Clinton. They did not even mention who BarakObama or John Edwards might pick.
This is why john Edwards and Dennis Kucinich are leading the pack in progressive straw polls, despite the best efforts of the conservative corporate media. They actually represent the feelings of the American people.
And here is Dennis Kucinich kicking ass and taking names. He is actually saying what a vast number of people in the United States want to hear.
[T]here isn’t actually any such thing as Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.
Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s. […]
Mike Huckabee, whom reporters like to portray as a nice, reasonable guy, says that if Hillary Clinton is elected, “I’m not sure we’ll have the courage and the will and the resolve to fight the greatest threat this country’s ever faced in Islamofascism.” Yep, a bunch of lightly armed terrorists and a fourth-rate military power — which aren’t even allies — pose a greater danger than Hitler’s panzers or the Soviet nuclear arsenal ever did.
All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
I know that the entire scenario is set up for Bush, or whoever is President, to take complete dictatorial control if there is ever another disaster or emergency anywhere in the world. He simply has to enact HSPD 51 and he would take control and all other branches would become subservient to him.
We already lost Habeus Corpus.
They already repealed Posse Comatatus.
They already created a private army of foreign mercenaries who have already been patrolling American streets since hurricane Katrina.
All the dominoes are in place, all it is going to take is some force to knock the first one down...
The only thing is, I sincerely do not believe that Bush wants to stay in power. I don't think he thinks being President is fun or cool anymore. I really think he is ready to get back to the ranch and "refill the old coffers".
Honestly, I am very concerned about what is going to happen at the election of 2008. The Republican Caging Operation remains out there, for the most part, unopposed and unknown to the public at large. Their partisan Secretaries of State remain in power in many key states, some them them still brazen in their partisanship by being involved in a candidates campaign while at the same time being responsible for the validity of the election in their state. Does anyone seriously believe Katherine Harris was not a Bush toady? Especially after her complete meltdown last year during the election, does anyone still believe that she was not capable of throwing the election in Florida for Bush? Is that is why they had to make the inappropriate, desperate, 11th hour appeal to the Federal Supreme Court to stop the recount in Florida? I can't prove anything but the circumstantial evidence is there and the whole thing stinks to high heaven of criminality.
Add to that the fact that our economy is teetering on the brink of recession and the whole thing becomes very ominous.
In the 1980s under Reagan, they fundamentally changed our economy with supply-side economics and instead of fueling demand with wages, as had been successfully done for decades, they started fueling demand with credit instead. That was when credit cards really took off and the sub prime mortgage market started to boom. It worked for two decades, but you cannot fuel an economy on debt forever and we are at the end of our rope. All it is going to take is China, India or some other major foreign investor to stop buying our debt, or for OPEC countries to peg the price of oil to the Euro instead of the Dollar and the value of our money will plummet.
The value of our dollar has been in free fall for a while and the bottom is about to fall out, but I think that they are just trying to keep it from happening until after the 2008 election.
Imagine, a Republican, chosen by the corporate powers that be, gets the nomination and after a contentious election, on the morning of November 8th, 2008 the media simply announces that the Republican candidate has won the election.
Who is going to stop them? Who is going to challenge it?
The Bush administration? The Partisan Justice Department? The Roberts Supreme Court?
So after being in office x amount of days, a large bomb goes off in a major US city during rush hour and kills hundreds of people.
The President steps in and the first domino falls...
Karl Rove gets his 100 years of Republican rule...
The neocons get their war with Iran...
"The real question is not whether you are too paranoid, the real question is are you paranoid enough?" - strange days
This is absolutely disgusting. I thought America might have started to wake up after Katrina, but if this does not hit home the need to have a functioning National Guard here on American soil, I don't know what will.
May 11, 2007 As state forestry officials predict an unusually harsh fire season this summer, the California National Guard says equipment shortages could hinder the guard's response to a large-scale disaster.
A dearth of equipment such as trucks and radios -- caused in part by the war in Iraq -- has state military officials worried they would be slow in providing help in the event of a major fire, earthquake or terrorist attack.
The readiness of the Guard has been described as a national problem and has become a political liability for the Bush administration, which came under fire this week when the governor of Kansas complained that the National Guard response to a devastating tornado in her state was inadequate. National Guard readiness has become a growing concern as the Guard has taken on extra responsibilities caused by the Iraq war and the increased threat of terrorism.
In California, half of the equipment the National Guard needs is not in the state, either because it is deployed in Iraq or other parts of the world or because it hasn't been funded, according to Lt. Col. John Siepmann. While the Guard is in good shape to handle small-scale incidents, "our concern is a catastrophic event,'' he said.
"You would see a less effective response (to a major incident),'' he said.
“If you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me…” – V in “V for Vendetta”
Like many Americans, I grew up believing that America was a beacon of freedom and democracy and like many Americans; I became disillusioned with that notion in the six years since September 11th, 2001. Like many Americans who care about our freedoms and our rule of law, I am very displeased with the direction our country has been heading for the last seven years and I am frustrated by the lack of results in affecting change.
Despite hundreds of thousands of people gathering around the country in protest, even after giving control of Congress to the so-called “opposition party”, the ill-conceived, illegal and immoral behaviors of this administration continue unabated. We invaded and continue to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan, we continue to hold prisoners, including American citizens, in secret, denying them the basic human right of Habeas Corpus, and we continue to use torture, which is a violation of human rights.
Worst of all though, are the blatant assertions by this President and his supporters that he is above the law. Their unfounded claims that the President has “unwritten powers” is absurd and illegal. The President does not have the constitutional authority to take away anyone’s rights. The only place that authority appears in the U.S. Constitution is Article I, section 9, which gives that authority to the Legislative branch, not the Executive and only in times of “invasion or insurrection.” The failure of Congress to hold the Executive to task for that claim is setting a disastrous precedent of giving the Executive branch more power than the U.S. Constitution allows. Unless we do something now, those powers will be passed onto the next President which will give it the legal standing of precedent and will make it much, much harder to take away. Having a President with swollen, king-like power will only make corruption and abuse of that power more likely as time goes on.
I have always been politically aware, but I have not always been politically active. I grew up around politics, my father being a local politician. I remember following the 1980 election between Reagan and Carter when I was only eight. When I was in high school I founded our school newspaper and even back then, my favorite topic to write about was politics. But my primary activity in regards to politics, besides voting and working on a couple of campaigns, has usually been contained to writing. Although I have written letters to my representatives since high school, I never really knew how to properly lobby my elected officials. I have written articles for online magazines, letters to the editor of numerous newspapers and made phone calls to my representatives, but in the face of the multibillion-dollar corporate lobbying machine my feeble efforts seems futile and insignificant.
On top of that, after I spent months last year working to get Democrats elected to Congress, they have failed again and again to take any meaningful stand. As I watched them roll over repeatedly to the minority party, my frustration only grew until it flirted with despair.
I was on the verge of giving up completely and becoming another member of the disinterested masses when an email, forwarded to me by my father, told me about a place where I could go to learn how to be a more effective citizen activist.
Camp Wellstone.
Camp Wellstone is a three-day course put on by the Wellstone Action group, out of Minnesota. There are three educational tracks to choose from, How to run for office, how to be a campaign volunteer and how to be a citizen activist. I chose the citizen activist track because it seemed to me to be the “introductory level” course.
The citizen activist track teaches you how to build a base around an issue, how to form coalitions between groups, how to stage earned media events and how to effectively lobby elected representatives. They brought in media experts and professional lobbyists who put the students through exercises where we staged our own media events and met with several “Senators” in order to practice our technique and receive constructive criticism from professionals who do it for a living. They also taught how to organize and execute an effective “get out the vote” campaign.
The only thing that they were lacking, as pointed out first by a blogger, farleftfield, who attended the same track as I did, was that they did not have anything on Internet outreach, organizing, or blogging. I can see how that could take up a whole day to itself.
I was fortunate enough to have some of Wellstone’s best trainers running my track. They were able to not only communicate the information necessary, but they also got the students involved and inspired us to take what we learned back to our local communities and put it to use.
But the best thing about the whole experience; the thing that was worth more than the cost of the camp, was not something they taught. It was a natural byproduct of groups of passionate, energetic people gathering together to focus their energy toward a common, positive goal.
The best thing that I took away from Camp Wellstone was HOPE.
Even the conversations during breaks and in the dining room were crackling with energy and passion. Everyone, regardless of race, sex, appearance or ability all shared a deep, passionate love of liberty and desire to make things better. There were three people in my track of the camp who had traveled all the way from New Mexico to attend. The knowledge that I am not alone in the fight to restore fairness, justice and liberty to America; the fact that there are other people out there who care as deeply as I do, gives me the motivation and energy to continue the good fight. And all I have to do to participate in the good fight is to help and support these other people. Camp Wellstone made me believe that, together, we really can change this world.
The overriding lesson of the camp is a simple one that Paul Wellstone himself used to chant like a mantra. If you want to affect political or social change, you have to “organize, organize, organize!”
The people who came out from Minnesota to put on this camp were extraordinary and inspiring in their own right. You could sense their passion and commitment to the cause of getting ordinary people involved in our political process. One of them even announced she had decided to run for Congress in Minnesota that week and we were among the first people she told. The simple fact that they were here, taking action and working constructively toward a positive goal made those of us attending the camp feel motivated to get out and do more ourselves. Historian Kenneth Davis once wrote that human history has been influenced by the presence of strong personalities in the right place at the right time, like Washington, Lincoln, or King. In my opinion, the Wellstone Action group may well be a gathering of strong personalities.
The fantastic folks at Wellstone Action have been busy. As of this writing they have trained over 14,000 people so far to either run for office, work on a campaign or work as an activist on an issue. And those of us who have been through the training are taking what we learned back into our communities and not only putting it to use, but we are also teaching others what we learned so that the effectiveness of all our efforts can grow exponentially.
For anyone who has felt the creeping sense of despair that our country is going down the wrong path and is headed straight for a cliff, that despair is caused by fear… fear that there is no solution to the problem.
But there is a solution.
The solution is for all of us who feel this way to get organized. If you aren’t sure how to do that, or where to start, of even if you just need a booster shot of hope and motivation, there is no better prescription than attending a session of Camp Wellstone.
That is why I ask that all of you reading this, who sees what I see, who feels as I feel, who would seek as I seek, to go the Wellstone Action website. Donate if you can spare the money. Sign up for Camp Wellstone if it is coming to your area. If it is not coming to you then you go to it. If you can’t travel that far then call them or write them and ask them, beg them or bribe them to come to your area. It may be the single most important thing you do this year.
This is a fantastic talk by Naomi Wolf (the other Naomi) about the weakening of our Democracy, the fascist-shift taking place in our society and it's parallels in history. She also emphasizes just how urgent this threat truly is. This is a bit long at 47 minutes, but it is definitely worth the time!
This is a fantastic speech by Naomi Klein, the author of The Shock Doctrine, the rise of disaster capitalism. This is the first of eight parts. You can find the rest by clicking here. Here she talks about the true story of the struggle for Democracy in Iraq and relates how the U.S. actually fought against Democracy in Iraq at every turn. Everything she brings up has been documented in other locations, such as the book, Fiasco.
The 8th part is a Q&A where she talks about some important points in moving forward that is definitely worth watching!
The UAW began a nationwide strike yesterday against GM. It was the first since 1976 and it may well be one of their last.
When I passed the GM plant on my way into work today there were a total of four guys walking a lonely, pathetic looking picket line at the front entrance with signs that didn’t explain why they were striking at all. They just said “UAW on strike”.
On my way home there were only two people walking the line. It is almost as if they are trying to fit the stereotype of the lazy, greedy union member who just wants to strike to get out of work and get more money.
This may well be the last dying gasp for Organized Labor in America.
At first it was speculated that the strike would be about the auto companies trying to push the cost of their health care expenses for retirees off on the unions, which cannot possibly end well for the retirees themselves since the unions are in worse financial shape then the struggling auto companies.
Instead they decided to use the opportunity to raise a larger issue, The Right of the People to Work. The right of the people to organize as labor and represent themselves on a more equal level with the global superpowers that today’s multi-national corporations have become.
According to the statement on their website, the UAW went to strike over a number of issues, “job security, economic issues, benefits for active workers and winning investment in future products”.
What the UAW is really fighting against the idea that Americans should lower their standards to those of the workers in the Chinese sweatshops if we want to compete in the global marketplace.
The Milton Friedman disciples, The Corporatists, who believe in a nonexistent, quasi-mystical “free market” that can support itself with no government regulation to back up its legitimacy, say that American workers are lazy and greedy for wanting to cut into the profits of Capital and demand all those pesky, “expensive” rules about “trivial” matters such as safety and quality. They say that there should be no “barriers” to trade like Tariffs and Taxes, at least not for America. Everyone else can protect their economies and their jobs all they want, just not us Americans. The Corporatists say we have to leave ourselves economically defenseless in order to “compete”.
Globalization is destroying the middle class in America and that is really what the UAW is striking against, even though they aren’t framing it that way. They are striking against the Conservative ideology that says Americans should have to compete for our jobs with peasants in Chile and China who don’t have any of those “expensive” government regulated workplace standards.
Thirty years ago Trade Unions comprised about 27% of the workforce, but today they only represent about 7%… and they were struggling to win any concessions thirty years ago.
They don’t stand a chance today. Not unless something radical happens.
When I started there, the Auto Companies had two different types of plants in North America, “Manufacturing”, where the metal was cast and the parts were actually made, and “Assembly” where the parts were assembled and rolled off the line a finished product.
In my time there, I have watched as all the “Manufacturing” jobs have been moved out of the United States and down into Mexico and South America. A couple of years a ago a group of IT employees from various South American plants came to our Headquarters for a series of meetings. During their time here, I got to know several of them. They told me about the conditions at the plants in South America where they manufacture our auto parts now. They all told me about large security forces in all their properties, usually armed with automatic weapons. At one plant, which was built miles away from town for “security” reasons, they pay the people so little that they cannot afford to go home during the week so there is a shanty-town set up of tents and lean-tos outside the fences of the plant property where the employees live during the week in their off time. They told me about how the plant management drives in every day in a large, black SUV, always with their armed escorts. At another plant, I was told that they have a large bin of used shoes for the employees at the entrance because they don’t make enough money to buy themselves new shoes. These are the “cost-saving” measures enacted by most multi-national corporations in the last couple of decades in order to keep increasing their profits.
All that is left in North America are the assembly jobs. Why is that important? Because manufacturing is the hard part to move to another country, it requires secure supply lines, access to raw materials, which have to be processed, and that process produces a lot more waste than assembly does. Waste, which has to be dealt with somehow. Manufacturing is the dirty work. It is the really dangerous work. They deal with the molten metal and the processing of raw material.Most importantly, manufacturing is usually considered the EXPENSIVE work.
Manufacturing is the work that requires a lot more of those “costly” worker safety standards and it is the harder to send overseas because it requires a whole supply chain of raw materials that is harder to deal with then the pre-made, pre-packaged parts are that arrive at the assembly plant in their neat stacks on pallets. Once they move manufacturing overseas, then “tightening the supply chain” and moving the assembly closer to the manufacturing simply excused as a “cost-savings” measure.
This strike by the UAW is thus far a pathetically ineffective, disorganized sham that lacks the quality of media representation necessary to even make their case properly. Ron Gettelfinger looked like Britney Spears at the VMA when he was in front of those cameras today; meekly stating how he was “disappointed” in General Motors.
Why doesn’t the UAW hire a PR firm to help them present their case?
Seriously guys! Hire a professional or a celebrity to get in front of the cameras and make your case for you. This is 2007…the media is all about entertainment value for short attention spans. Think in terms of what would make a good clip on YouTube.
The UAW don’t seem to realize how much popular opinion matters to their own fate, which is sad considering how a free and independent press played a large role in fostering the public opinion that created the labor unions in America in the first place. Granted, we don’t have a free and independent press anymore. There is no longer any such concept as serving the public good in the corporate media of today. What we have now is Infotainment for profit.
This action by the UAW is about 6 years too late.
If they had led a major push for national solidarity in labor after 9-11, the UAW could have pulled off a complete image makeover and forced this country in a completely different direction, against the tide of radical “free”-market disaster capitalism.
But they didn’t. And now we are witnessing their last gasps of breath while they are being successfully squeezed out of existence so we can be more like the Chinese, Brazilian and Chilean Peasants we now have to compete with for our jobs.
I was so pissed off I felt physically ill while watching it.
Then I felt worse as I watched the public reaction to what I thought was an obvious and disgusting violation of a young citizen’s right to free speech and to redress his grievances with his government.
At the University of Florida, a 21-year-old student, Andrew Meyer, was tasered into silence for asking John Kerry controversial questions at a public forum.
Let me get this straight.
It is a public forum, at a public university, specifically for the purpose of letting the public ask questions of an elected public official.
Yes, the kid is acting like a bit of a jerk while he is asking his questions, but being a jerk is not a crime in itself.
If it were, Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck would have been tased into silence long ago and Ann Coulter would be court-ordered to wear a shock collar around her neck 24/7… and Barbara Streisand would get to keep the remote.…But I digress.
You can see at the beginning of the video that everyone is just standing around calmly while John Kerry is speaking. There is no disturbance or commotion and everyone is focused on John Kerry. He finishes speaking, looks up, points directly at this kid and says, "You have a question?” giving this kid the floor.
The kid launches into his piece by presenting the context of his questions, a book, Armed Madhouse, by Greg Palast, which lays out the evidence of widespread Republican election fraud in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Senator Kerry states that he has read the book.
Then he asked his questions.
Why did you concede the 2004 election so quickly? There was ample evidence that something was wrong because the exit polls were so far off from the “official” results that if Senator Kerry has waited and demanded a recount, he may well be President today.
Were he and George W. Bush both members of the secretive “Skull and Bones Society” at Yale?
His questions are important ones. He obviously did a lot of preparation and thought about his questions. You can see he is very emotional and feels very strongly about what he is saying and asking. Even John Kerry could be heard responding, “Those are important questions.”
The point at which the line was crossed was when the campus police decided to grab the kid and escalate the situation to physical confrontation. Any properly trained police officer knows that in that situation the “fight or flight” instinct will kick in and they always run the risk of the person they are grabbing fighting back reflexively.
When the police grabbed the kid and started pulling him away from the microphone, you very clearly hear John Kerry telling the campus police, "That's all right, let me answer his questions."
Right then, they crossed another line. They should have stopped right when the Senator and main speaker of the event tells them to stop and let him continue the dialogue.
In my opinion it was at that point that it became a crime committed by the campus police.
If the officers has stopped assaulting the kid then and let the Senator answer his questions, there would not have been an “incident” at all.
But they didn’t stop; instead six officers dragged the kid to the back of the room, cuffed him and sat on him.
He was asking repeatedly “What did I do?” But aside from that he was contained and they could have picked him up and carried him outside.
But they didn’t do that either.
Instead, they tortured him into silence with a taser! Right there in front of everyone, with at least three cameras rolling.
A taser is not a toy. A taser is no joke. A taser is 20,000 volts of electricity conducted through your body. Tasers are extremely painful. They have been known to cause people to lose control of their bowels, have seizures and people have even died from having a taser used on them!
Tasers are meant to be a non-lethal means to stop someone who poses a threat to physical safety.
Tasers are not supposed to be used as torture devices to force citizens into silence for asking controversial political questions!
Obviously the kid staged all this on purpose, supposedly to make a video of him publicly confronting John Kerry with these controversial questions so he could post it on YouTube.The talking heads on the conservative corporate media will point to that as if it were justification for the campus police physically assaulting the kid and torturing him into silence with a taser.
They are wrong.
The Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
The Bill of Rights:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is Mr. Meyer’s god given, inalienable right to make a video of him asking questions of a public official in a public forum and to make that video public.
I say God bless Andrew Meyer for having the courage to risk his neck asking controversial, emotionally charged, political questions in such a straightforward and public fashion. We see now how dangerous that simple act is in 2007 America.
What disturbs me the most about this whole situation is number of people who actually defend the campus police in this situation. Are some of us suffering from Helsinki Syndrome?
Case in point, a friend of mine, immediately after watching the video of the confrontation, said:
“That kid was a dumb-ass. Any time someone in a position of authority like that tells you to do something you should just do it. If they don’t want you to speak, you shouldn’t get to speak.”
And I seem to hear that same sentiment being echoed all around me and I cannot understand how people are not rejecting it out of simple common sense.
It sounds like someone who is beaten down, has given up and embraced Helsinki Syndrome, and perhaps that is what propels them to defend such an abhorrent public abuse of a citizens rights.
In her new book, The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein presents a compelling case study of how shock can be used to pacify and manipulate people, not only on an individual level, but also on the societal.
Shock caused by trauma or crisis, real or perceived, causes a person to regress into a primal, childlike state where they are easily manipulated and pacified.
In other words…“Shock and Awe”
We have been conditioned to live in fear.
This has been happening to America increasingly since Kennedy was shot live on national television. It could be argued that they initially noticed the potential for manipulation of the public after Pearl Harbor, but Kennedy’s assassination was even more powerful because it was delivered live on national television.
Then the little shocks started coming in regularly. Vietnam. Reagan shot live on national television. Then an Army Base in Beirut is attacked. The World Trade Center gets bombed, the USS Cole gets bombed, the US Olympics in Atlanta are bombed, 9-11 (again, live on national television), Anthrax being sent in the mail, snipers killing people in Washington D.C. and Ohio, little girls being kidnapped left and right… the constant drum-beat in our corporate media, repeating the mantra:“Be Afraid.”
Andrew Meyer showed extraordinary courage in standing up to all that fear and loudly, assertively asking tough questions that millions of Americans sincerely want to hear the answers to but will never get from the corporate media.
We all have to take inspiration from Mr. Meyer’s example and do what is right despite our fears.
Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is acting despite fear.
We all need to start taking more action, despite our fear, to regain the freedoms we have lost and to defend the rest, which remain threatened by authoritarians who take advantage of every tragedy and use the shock they create to push their own agendas.
This story and some Americans’ reactions to it are a strong example of how badly we are losing the battle of ideals against the authoritarians. They show how badly we are beaten down, how terrified, how demoralized and how pacified we all are that we not only sit by as a 21 year old kid is tortured into silence with a taser but that some of us actually defend that action instead of the student’s rights and freedoms.
People who believed they had to be quiet or polite when speaking to public officials about controversial politics did not create this country.
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. Trying to convince them to join the American Revolution.
This goes especially for you Democrats in Congress.
Grow some balls.
As Dorothy Sayers once said, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” So far you have been falling for everything. The time to stop that is now.
This is your last chance. If you can find the time to condemn MoveOn.org for stating an opinion shared by a large portion of America then you damn well better be able to find time to condemn this immoral violation of a young citizen’s rights.
The founders only left us with one piece of advice in the case you continue to fail us.
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
It seems like I have spent a lifetime chasing women, looking for love but finding only lust. It has really only been since my teenage years, of course, but it feels like longer. I actually got to a point not all that long ago that I resigned myself to being a permanent bachelor.
During my childhood I was not the prettiest kid. I had a large mole on my cheek. I wore glasses. I wore a lot of hand me down clothes from my older brothers and that my Mom got from garage sales. Then when I was in junior high, I lost some weight, had the mole removed and got contact lenses. Suddenly, just in time for high school, I was a lot more attractive. I started learning about girls right away. One of my first dates with a girl was when I was 13 years old. She was 18. I told her I was 16 and she believed me. She drove a Firebird and we went to see Rocky IV. After the date I told her my real age. I never saw her again.
I sowed my wild oats early and often, so to speak. Especially after high school when I moved to California, I was working in a gym and at a night club. I was 18, tan, in the best shape of my life and I was almost literally picking up every single girl I set my sights on. For a short time in my life it seemed like there was literally no woman I could not have. I had women throwing themselves at me every single night at the nightclub I worked at.
I recognized very quickly the transient nature of these good looks that were suddenly making me so popular with women. I recognized that none of the relationships I had then could possibly last. A lot of the women I dated had a particular mold they wanted to try and fit me into in order to make me the "perfect boyfriend". Many of them tried to dress me in certain ways or get me to do my hair in certain ways. Some women wanted me to quit collecting comic books. One wanted me to stop watching sci-fi movies. One particularly beautiful woman told me that I would have to "accept Jesus as my personal savior" (i.e. join her particular sect of Christianity) if I wanted to date her. When I was 20, a girl I dated for a year proposed to me. She was joining the Air Force and wanted to marry me so I could go with her. Although we had a passionate relationship, I found myself reflecting on the fact that she was highly critical and prone to saying mean things without thinking. I realized that I didn't want to spend my life with her. Passion just isn't enough by itself.
I dated around and after I moved back to Michigan I met a girl that I got serious about. We dated for over four years.I planned on marrying her eventually. She seemed sweet and sincere. I could see myself spending the rest of my life with her. But then my mother had a relapse of breast cancer. I spent a year and a half taking my mom to the hospital for her chemotherapy treatments and watching her waste away right before my eyes. She grew so weak and brittle that she fractured a rib rolling over in bed. It took its toll on me. I grew depressed and my girlfriend decided she didn't want to be there for me and she left. That took an even bigger toll on me. I went through an extremely turbulent time where for years, I felt very angry, bitter and cynical. I got through it with a lot of help from my friends, from reading a lot of books and from a daily practice of meditation.
Eventually I met Renea. We met online and the first thing I was drawn to about her was her personality. She has a quirky, silly sense of humor. After a short time we decided to meet in person. The first thing I noticed was her big toothy smile and her excitement. I could tell she was very excited to meet me. Instead of having her questions feel like an interview, like a first date normally does, Renea and I just had a good conversation. We talked about our families, our lives, what we had done up till now, and it was all so casual and so... normal... that after only a couple hours in Renea's company, I felt like I had known her my whole life.
I genuinely love Renea and I can tell she loves me. Not because she buys me some expensive presents, but because of all the little things she does for me. The occasional greeting card for no reason. The heart she draws on the top of a mocha with the chocolate syrup. Cutting large letters out of construction paper to spell "I love Kyle" and putting them up on my office wall. All of these are examples of why I love her but the reason goes deeper.
After meeting Renea, my good friend Kristin observed, "She adores you. Do you know how lucky you are?"
Yes, I do.
That is why I am choosing to stop chasing other women, a practice that comes natural to all men, and that I used to be extremely good at, and I am choosing to marry my life to the one woman whom is both my friend and my lover.
Granted, I haven't chased other women since I met Renea, but legally, the possibility was always there. By marrying her I am choosing to move on to a new chapter of my life.
Charles Schumer just pointed out the fact that our country currently lacks anyone in any of the top three positions in the Justice Department.
Right now, we have no Attorney General, no Deputy Attorney General or Associate Attorney General.
And one has to ask, which is preferable, bad leadership or no leadership?
Gonzo was one of the worst, most dishonest and most partisan Attorney Generals America ever had to suffer through. The damage he did to our justice system with his unethical, blatent partisan politcization of the justice system will be with us for years, possibly decades to come. By following Karl Rove's directives, he set a prescedent of making the Attorney General nothing more than a partisan stooge.
The Democrats have an opprotunity to redeem themselves by finding their spines and NOT voting to confirm any replacement that is going to be another partisan stooge who compromies our entire political system. They have a responsibility to make sure that any replacement is going to be independant and will enfore the law evenly, on everyone, including members of the party that nominated him/her.
Contrary to Republican beliefs, no one should be above the law.
You have to watch it all the way to the end. The obvious connotation in the metaphor is Jesus, but the metaphor holds just as true if taken as God, the Budda-Nature, or Enlightenment. It is the story of one girl's life and at the same time it is Campbell's, "Heroes' Journey".
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in one of his harshest attacks on the United States in seven years in power, accused Washington on Saturday of attempting to force its will on the world.
The White House said it was “surprised and disappointed” by Putin’s accusations but added Washington expected to continue to work with Moscow in areas such as counter-terrorism and reducing the spread and threat of weapons of mass destruction.
In a speech in Germany, which one U.S. senator said smacked of Cold War rhetoric, Putin accused the United States of making the world a more dangerous place by pursuing policies aimed at making it “one single master”.
Attacking the concept of a “unipolar” world in which the United States was the sole superpower, he said: “What is a unipolar world? No matter how we beautify this term it means one single center of power, one single center of force and one single master.”
“It has nothing in common with democracy because that is the opinion of the majority taking into account the minority opinion,” he told the gathering of top security and defense officials. Read more…
Once again, Jon Stewart absolutely puts to shame every talking head that the conservative corporate media puts forward as "Journalists" by having the conversation that the public needs to have.
Thanks to the rise of progressive media like Air America and the blogosphere, we are now able to see confrontations like this in the more mainstream media and the audience knows exactly what Jon is talking about when he mentions "The clip of Cheney from 1994".
The conservative corporate media sure as hell wasn't bringing that up in 2002!
The Democratic Underground has a great list of the claims made by Bush Administration officials and their supporters, against the patriotism, integrity and intelligence of progressives who just happened to be concerned about the same things Cheney mentioned in 1994 and that have all since come true!
“A lot of people like to say, uh, scaremonger about China, right? A lot of politicians, and I know you talk about that issue all the time. I think people should be careful what they wish for on China. Ya know, if China were to revalue it’s currency or China is to start making say, toys that don’t have lead in them or food that isn’t poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the United States are going to go up too. So, I would say China is our greatest friend right now, they’re keeping prices low and they’re keeping the prices for mortgages low, too.”
Here is a great video of Rumsfeld getting busted for his lies leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Ironically it is a conservative who was a cheerleader for the war, Tom "Globalization is great" Friedman, who busts Rummy.
I have noticed something recently, both around the "water cooler" at work and creeping into the public discourse.
I keep hearing the same sentiment expressed in conversations between ordinary Americans: "things in this country are only going to continue getting worse until we have an armed insurrection."
And it isn't just progressives and liberals. I have heard some conservatives say the same thing. Everyone is thinking the same thing; Are we headed toward another civil war?
"UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Michael, my name is Becka Baker. I‘m from Tulsa, Oklahoma. My question for you is with 71 percent of the American people dissatisfied with this country today, dissatisfied with the war, health care, education, that the sky is blue, you name it, they‘re dissatisfied. Do you think America is ripe for a revolt? Will a revolution put this nation back on track?"
Also recently, Hugo Award winning Author Orson Scott Card wrote "Empire", a fiction about a near-future revolution in the United States between liberals and conservatives.
This thought is on every one's mind, because there are no practical solutions being offered. The corporate control of our government seems total and immovable without violent overthrow. The conservative world-view that government cannot do anything right and that only private, for-profit enterprises can do anything for America infects our media and therefore infects a great many Americans, to the detriment of all Americans. We are being polarized into classes again and the media is keeping everyone ignorant to that fact.
That is what John Edwards is talking about when he talks about "Two Americas". My brother delivered a truckload of relief supplies to the Gulf Coast after Katrina and afterwards he told me that "those people needed those supplied desperately... before Katrina had ever hit."
There is a new book, "Richistan", that talks about how the wealthy live in a completely isolated world of their own. They send their kids to private schools and use private hospitals. Executives have private parking spaces and private entrances in most of the largest corporations. They live in gated communities and use personal assistants to do their shopping.
The corporate media keeps telling us that the economy is doing great, but their only evidence for that is that corporate profits have been going up. At the same time, for average workers, real wages have been falling and our benefits have been drying up right before our eyes. We are watching our neighbors and families going bankrupt and losing their homes because of medical costs, outsourcing of jobs or because they were patriotic enough to go over and serve in Iraq.
Protests have not worked. Writing letters has not worked. Calling our Representatives has not worked. They just caved-in AGAIN and gave into Bush on his warrentless wiretapping.
And the rightwing is thinking about it too. They are waiting and watching for the straw that breaks the camels back.
After Supreme Court Justice Roberts collapsed this week, rightwing radio host Michael "Savage" Wiener claimed that it was because of a "conspiracy by Democrats".
This country is headed straight for another civil war.
The signs are right under all our noses.
A Democratic victory in 2008 will only prolong the inevitable unless something radical happens and a real progressive populist is not elected. That will only happen if enough concerned Americans get together and take back the Democratic party.
A Republican victory in 2008 will only guarantee that the next American civil war happens sooner rather than later.
