The Progressive Blog Alliance HQ

Original post at P!

My Dear Friends and Allies:

I was not in the streets of Chicago forty years ago, but many of my close friends were. I will not rehash the details of those days, The Days of Rage that followed, nor the history and context of those times. All that is readily and copiously available.

As you reflect and, I hope, recover from yesterday's events, I urge you to think carefully and choose wisely in these next few days. There is great danger in unchecked emotion and thoughtless action. I hope you will not see martyrdom as an option.

We live in a time and place of ubiquitous mythology. While much of that mythology is recently contrived by the corporatocracy to justify its slash and burn juggernaut, a mythology has also been constructed by the Left to cover its steady demise over the four decades since the fiasco by the lake. I feel it my responsibility to discredit some of that mythology, and I will do it quickly and bluntly. It is best bludgeoned rather than surgically carved.

In spite of the fact that the Chicago Police Department made a fool of itself, more damage was done to the image of the Left than to that of the reactionary Right. Those few days, in fact, rang the death bells for any effectiveness that Port Huron might have hoped for.

Watching congress do whatever it is that they do is like watching my screen saver, a lot of movement, a bit of color, a little cheap entertainment but ultimately a waste of time.

I would like to have 10 percent of the monetary value of the man hours expended by members of the House, the Senate, and their respective staffs that was piled atop the redolent heap of history's wasted gestures in the recent exercise in futility that was the fight over the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill.

What has George Bush wrought?
While watching Joe Scarborough of MSNBC last night (May 1st 2007) it occurred to me that George W. Bush has wrought many changes in the American political landscape. I imagine that almost all of these changes were unintentional.

Suppliers in China have admitted to adding melamine to animal feed. The FDA
is trying to screen out the additive, which is now blamed for many pet deaths
Associated Press Photo

1st Armored Division Soldiers conduct a combat patrol in Tal Afar, Iraq in their M2 Bradley fighting vehicle.
Photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon

Editors note: The photograph above was taken in February 2006 at a time when Bush was reporting Tall Afar as an Iraqi success story.
I think Bush saw the city as an example of the Iraqi version of "no child left behind."

In my world history class we are doing a project about cloning and stem cell research. I would have to say that stem cell reasearch is ridiculous. I think that scientist and doctors should focus on the fact that we have many diseases uncurable and they should be spending time to fine the cures for those specific diseases. They dont need to be dong riduclous things like cloning and stem cell resaerch. I think stem cell research is useful but cruel. What are your thoughts?

Appeasing The Gods Of The Shareholders

Twice a week I have a physical therapy session at the Dayton VA Hospital. I had a heart attack last March 15, (beware the ides?) in October they referred me to cardio pulmonary therapy to build me up for whatever years may lie ahead. They have done an excellent job and I am pleased with my future prospects.

I have been treated at the Dayton VA several times over the years, have volunteered there performing Veteran's memorial services as part of an honor guard, and three years ago said good bye to my father who died in the VA hospice at the age of 80.

Looks like the fat lady won't even have to stretch her pipes.

This from Xinjingbao, in China (reprinted in full):

After Democrats Pick Obama or Hillary, U.S. Election May Be Over

Will U.S. Democrats tear themselves to shreds deciding who to nominate for President? Will the Republican nominee attack Bush and cause internal Republican Party dissention? Who better to ask that one of the most powerful political parties in the world – the Chinese Communists? According to this op-ed article from China's state-controlled Xinjingbao [Beijing News], the Democrats are in such good shape, there may be little need for Americans to vote.

By Mr. Liu, a Scholar in Beijing
Translated By How Xian Neng
February 12, 2007
China – Xinjingbao – Original Article (Chinese)

After Black Senator Barack Obama officially announced his intention to run for the Presidential nomination, the Democratic Party's electoral road map became clear. Even though there are other candidates participating in the battle, a common opinion holds that the Democratic nomination will be a clash between a woman and an African American. Will this unprecedented phenomenon signal an early end to the electoral battle?

After many years of lies, delusions and neo-conservative rule, the American Public can endure no more. [The Chinese characters for neo-conservatives (火神派) stand for Fire-God Faction] Americans no longer wish to live in Bush's shadow, and are looking forward to building a new America. At this moment, two new stars have emerged in the opposition camp. Two have two such fresh faces at once is extremely rare in American history. Whether it's Hilary or Obama, both are full of personal charm – which is in stark contrast to the rigidly conservative Bush Administration. And both candidates have toyed with the same message: “It's time to rebuild America's Image.” Under the banner of doing the People’s will, the Democratic Party's new black and woman stars have become the most popular figures in American politics.

At the same time, last year’s midterm Congressional elections were a sign of things to come. In Congressional races two years ago, Republicans preserved their majority even though the weaknesses of Bush's domestic and foreign policies had already been exposed. But today, the American public has lost its patience with the incorrigibly obstinate neo-conservative Republican faction. The Democrats are far more in tune than the Republicans with the mainstream ideological trends of American society. They look nothing like they did two years ago, when the Kerry campaign stubbornly defended his strongly liberal views. Many of the new Democratic congressmen are more temperate and moderate, which shows that the party has complied with popular sentiment and should find it easier to win elections.

In contrast, not only is the enthusiasm of Republicans at a very low ebb, but they are suffering from a lack of internal coordination [in Chinese, an imbalance of Yin and Yang, 不受欢迎的人] The Republican advantage of depending on a strong executive [the President] has become a distinct disadvantage. Bush has already become persona non grata and makes an easy target, which will put the Republican Party candidate in an awkward position: Only by differentiating themselves from Bush can they hope to win support; but excessive criticism of Bush will cause internal party dissention.

Stricken with the long-term illness of the Bush regime, Republicans are unable to inoculate themselves with a dose of strong criticism like their Democrats counterparts. Instead, they have to quietly swallow the bitter fruit planted by Bush. Even though Democrats have their share of internal disagreement, the disputes of Republicans over key issues like withdrawal from Iraq are much harder to reconcile. Bush's hard-line supporters will give a heap of trouble colleagues who want to abandon him.

The Democrats have much better prospects.

Hilary is a seasoned veteran with tremendous capital, and Obama is young, vibrant and passionate.

Although they will clash before facing a common adversary, the advantages of whoever wins will be sufficient to cause panic in any opponent. If they should decide to team up, the two should perfectly compliment one another.

Polls show that 62 percent of American voters are ready for a Black president, and the Washington Post has stated that Hillary’s candidacy deserves "bipartisan applause." As long as Democrats maintain their advantage over Republicans by putting the interests of the Party first during the primaries, the Democratic National Convention next summer could be the real end of the America election. The only choice Americans may get to make could be between a female President or a Black President.

There began to be evidence a couple of months ago that the '08 election would be different than anything we've ever seen. The ruling elite and their monolithic international financial funders have been working tirelessly, if not so stealthily anymore, to completely dictate (I use that word purposefully) both the candidates and the outcome of US national elections. Roll up the tents, my friends. The game's almost over. My prediction, which I've hinted at for weeks, is that it'll be a Clinton/Obama ticket. The primaries will be so many blue rubber stamp events that the states won't even be able to find a red stamp pad.

Interestingly enough, the left wing in the black community, voiced by the Black Agenda Report and, to a more moderate degree, the Black Commentator, have been raising serious concerns about Obama. Thankfully, they've unerringly looked past his pretty face and JFK charisma, and listened carefully to his words, looked at his voting record, and examined his lack of commitment to not only the black nation, but to the plight of poor and otherwise marginalized, disenfranchised, and poor folks of all flavors and colors.

Very irreverent questions: Did Rahm Emmanuel (the DLC version of Karl Rove) build this guy's legend? Anyone on the hard Left got the cojones to walk back the cat? Except for Kucinich (I hope), are the Illumnati throwing a few Euroes around to the other "candidates" to provide cover or are these cats just running for cabinet positions? Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm just a rabid radical crack head.

Enough has already been said about Hillary Rodham. The fact that she's pro-war, pro-empire, and pro-globalization just doesn't matter. With the kind of money these folks will have, they won't have to just buy the election, they can buy the whole damned country.

One of the then-amusing characteristics of the Soviet system was that, yes, they had democratic elections and even high turnout (in some "member" states, folks were forced to vote). The thing was, y'see, there was only one candidate. Now that we "won the cold war", we're free to implement the same structure. Nothing to see here. Go back to your homes.

All your votes are belong to us.

I would like to extend an invitation to you to join in on a collective blogging section of our upcoming winter issue of Reconstruction Here is the original call: Theories/Practices of Blogging Our intent in this section of the issue will be to collect a wide range of bloggers and link up to their statements in regards to why they blog (something many of us are asked) and any statement they have on the theories/practices of blogging. If you already have a post on this you can feel free to use it, or, if you are interested, you can submit a new one. We will link to each statement from the issue at our site, with the intent of creating a hyperlinked list of statements on blogging that can serve as an introduction to blogging (or an expansion of knowledge for those already blogging).

9-11 changed me. 9-11 changed all of us, but 9-11 didn't change everything. Five years later everything that was wrong with the world then is still wrong with the world today-- governments still plan the destruction of other governments, young men and women still die so a greedy few can take what they want, children world over are still starving, AIDs, Malaria, and other infectious diseases still kill millions, endangered species are still endangered, the environment continues to suffer, and entire populations are still duped into believing that God by whatever name they choose to call God, commands us to destroy any who call God by any other name. And the politicians on the left and the right are still fattening themselves at the expense of children that have yet to be born. Fact is: 9-11 didn't change much at all except for the fact that scared Americans became bigger fools than we already were.

Suitable as the day's meaningful blog, the topic is the widely unaccepted "oxymoron" "fighting for peace." But is it truly hypocritical? Many of you liberals who will be reading this are probably telepathically, if not verbally, expressing your stance. But try to be open minded, as you accuse the Republicans of not being.

The day is September 11, 2001. It's just before 8 a.m. and some 200+ American travelers are preparing to take off, whether it be for business, pleasure, or any other reason. Skip to 8:46 a.m. One of the planes carrying a fraction of these passengers has been hijacked, crashed into one of our leading business and economic buildings. The United States has been attacked. It goes on from there, more deaths involving the second tower, the Pentagon, crash in a small Pennsylvania town. Why? Our President will soon clarify.

Al-Jazeera have shown a video which supposedly shows Bin Laden meeting with some of the 9/11 hijackers, well at least that's the spin that the mass media have put on it. But is that true? I thought I was gonna see Bin Laden and Mohamed Atta standing together, shaking hands and smiling, but no. We get some ghosty, grainy images of someone that could be Bin Laden meeting with two guys that the US have decided were 9/11 masterminds. Not actually any of the 19 hijackers. How many masterminds were there for 9/11 anyway?

Pah...

Dave

The Crying Indian (1974) Watch it here. As I predicted in my review of the Gore film, the conservatives will not engage the film's arguments en totale. Gore's two or three quibbl-ible points are then used to brand him as a propagandist on par with Hitler and Goebbels--literally. And this did not appear on Rush Limbaugh, but on CNN (Yes, spare me your yawns;there's a difference)! Click here for the story. Now that's the kind of public discourse worthy of a healthy democracy...

This article is about the link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues. The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment

Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.

Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.

Afghanistan. Iraq. Social Security. Economics. Education. No matter your political affiliation or beliefs, George W. and his administration have failed on nearly everything they have tried. Whether you believe their intentions were good or evil, their incompetence has crippled or ruined their attempts. First Afghanistan. Was it a just war? I think so. However, it was crippled by too few troops and mismaneagment of the troops that were there. In December 2001, bin Laden and close to 2,000 experienced, well armed Taliban fighters were cornered in a system of caves at Tora Bora. The force used to get him out? About 2,500 ill-equipped, ill-trained Afghani militiamen and some 40 US Special Forces troops. After repeatedly repelling attacks from the safety of their caves, bin Laden and his troops slipped our of the mountains into Pakistan. The worst part of this whole ordeal was that the caves could have been adequately surrounded if not taken. Brigadier General James Mattis requested to deploy his 4,000 Marines around Tora Bora, but Central command denied his request.

So, the threat level has been reduced from critical to severe, so we can now relax because the terrorist threat is no longer imminent. Having said that, was the threat imminent anyway? There seems to be quite a lot of evidence to suggest that the suspects hadn’t bought plane tickets, and some of them didn’t even have passports. Coupled with the fact that British Intelligence wanted more time to monitor these suspects, I believe that JTAC’s decisions may be more politically motivated than the Home Secretary would have us believe.
 
So, what has this achieved? Well, the British public are scared (fear leads to the dark side etc, etc) and we’ve all forgotten how much we hate Tony. We’ve forgotten about the brutal Israeli assault on the people of Lebanon and Palestine. We will undoubtedly see an introduction of through-clothes scanners in airports and train stations soon (see Qinetiq’s profits soar), and there will be more passenger searches based on racial and religious profiling. The smear campaign against the Muslim Council of Great Britain and George Galloway is in full swing and last, but by no means least, the 90 day detention of terror suspects is back on the agenda.

Hi my name is Bob Larson Sr. I am running for MN Senate in District 62 in south Minneapolis. I became a tax accountant when I graduated from Metropolitian State College in 1984. The first two years I went to Minneapolis Community College receiving my AA. I then transfered to the U of M where I planed to get my teaching certificate but the state laid off all the teachers so I decided to go to Metro State to finish. I am running for MN State Senator district 62 in south Minneapolis. The district is large and starts on the north at Franklin Ave to Crosstown on the south and then from about 35W to the River Road (jogs a bit). It's larger than many suburbs including Richfield, Brooklyn Center and Park, New Hope and others. He is what I am going to do and I believe after all the othere canidates including local, judges, state and federal will adopt this too (unless you as a voter don't care for my platform). If you are 65 or older or you have family members taht are 65 or older or you have a nieghbor who is 65 years and old if elected I will thier freeze property taxes. They need our help so vote for me and I will change the law...Why Not! I you have children ages 17 and 18 or if you have family members that have kids that age or if you have neighbors that have kids that agae listen up! I will increase the age of the Child Tax Credit that will include the age of 17 and 18. A present time it is at 16. The law was for you to get a $1000 per child tax credit (a real good deal) but congress ends it at 16. Your kids are still in school for heaven sake. I am going to change that law! I's a good idea. It will help you with an extra $1000 per kid for the last two years of their school. Why Not! Also I am going to make Health Care that you pay 100% deductible on your taxes. Right now you usually can't deduct a penny. If we are suppose to get ourselves health care then lets deduct it 100%. It makes sense. Why Not! You paid for it. If you don't vote for me ok. But make sure the canidate you are voting for supports freezing property tax for voters that are over 65, increase the age of the child tax credit from 16 years old to include 17 and 18 as long as the kids are in school, and make sure they are going to back the health deduction at 100% for you and your family. Hey come on I am giving a reason for the first time in years to vote. Don't vote for anyone not making these laws part of their campaign. Hey wait a minute you should vote for me not them I'm gong to give you more money than you ever got from any canidate before or after. Any Questions e-mail me. Hey you need a sign? Hey send me some money (it's refundable to you at 100% of the first $50 you'll get a check and it is backed by the Secretary of State and issued from the Department of Revenue in about 4 to 8 weeks). Go to Minnesota Secretray of State on the web then go to home page then click on canidate then scroll down to senate district 62 and read about me. Oh yeh if you remember me VOTE for me BOB LARSON SR. on September 12, 2006. If you can't remember that then maybe you can remember my catchy campaign slogan. 'BOB, BOB HE'S OUR MAN! IF HE CAN'T DO IT NO ONE CAN. bog that baby.

From the Belfast Telegraph editorial, "Middle East Crisis: Who backs an immediate ceasefire?" with a nod to Empires Fall:

As a humanitarian disaster looms, Britain and the US are left exposed by refusing to endorse the UN's demand for an end to hostilities.

The swaggering simpleton, his features half-frozen in that ridiculous smirk of the clueless nincompoop, lets slip to a credulous, beholden media that Syria and Iran are “responsible for this shit”. And, lo and behold, that is the message that is dutifully relayed to the world - and there is hardly a discernable tongue in any cheek as this unadulterated clap-trap is transmitted.

So, having been given the green light by Bush and Blair, the Zionist terror apparatus continues to lay waste the people and infrastructure of Lebanon, a sovereign nation. This frightening exercise of raw military power we see on our screens everyday can by no stretch of the imagination be characterised as a case of Israel “defending itself from terrorism”.

This wanton destruction is the work of one man. He sits at the apex of an axis of evil incorporating Zionist hawks, a craven British political class, America’s military-industrial complex, end-time Christian fundamentalists and a bought-and-paid-for media establishment. It is not the work of so-called Muslim terrorists.