The Progressive Blog Alliance HQ

I am pleased to announce a new Carnival of Community Campaigns. This carnival aims to promote blogging as a method of building and publicising the causes of small community groups, battling against political and corporate power. It will bring together the best posts from local groups, bringing local activism to an international audience. The homepage of the carnival is here: http://humantide.blogspot.com/2006/07/carnival-of-community-campaigns.html - please send your suggestions in soon!

The transfer of assets from peripheral states to international financial oligarchies is one of the defining tenets of the neoliberal counter-revolution. As a general rule, this latest form of neocolonial transfer of surplus to the industrialized core has proceeded relatively successfully in many peripheral states, with many Latin American states standing out as significant exceptions. In Pakistan, where the ruling state oligarchy has historically been the equivalent of a comprador bourgeoisie, this process has accelerated since it was initiated in the late 1980s...To read rest of the article visit http://monthlyreview.org/1005akhtar.htm.

Thanks to some research by The Kenosha Kid, Operation Yellow Elephant has uncovered exclusive right-wing talking points against the "Chickenhawk" argument. As you may have guessed it, right-wingers consider themselves freedom fighters in the "War Of Ideas", not chickenhawks who voice support for a war in which they refuse to serve. This list comes from Reagan Youth, also known as Young America Foundation:

1. We are engaged in a war of ideas on college campuses that is essential to winning the war on terror. This is also very important since hateful professors are spewing anti-American rhetoric at the students every day and students rarely hear all sides of the argument.

This is one of my weekly articles published on Climate Change Action, all the reports used in its composition are freely available for download from Climate Change Resources

The UK has an impressive stance on carbon emissions, it is aiming for a 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. This isn't due to altruism or noblesse, but out of self interest, Britain is an island, much of it low lying, we don't want to loose our capital under the waves due to thermal expansion of the seas, or a volume increase from the melting Greenland ice sheet! As The UK`s Chief Scientific advisor, Sir David King, pointed stated " Climate Change is the most severe problem that we face today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism". Tony Blair apparently agrees in a speech last year he referred to climate change as "What I believe to be the worlds greatest environmental challenge".

Leftyblogs is a new progressive blog aggregator by state.  Check it out and add your blog if you have one.  This looks to be a very useful tool. 

LeftyBlogs.com promises to scan blogs throughout the United States, updating the latest delicious bloggy goodness from over 600 sites and posting it on a state by state layout.

(Cross posted from A Canadian Lefty in Occupied Land.)

Well tie me to an ant hill and smear my ears with jam -- Radio Free School has a blog! RFS is a radio show put together by a family of un-schoolers in Hamilton, Ontario. It is broadcast every week on 93.3 FM CFMU as well as on a number of other stations around the world and at Radio4All. Now the five merry adventurers in radically liberatory learning are using the blogosphere to build "tantrum space for un-schoolers at radio free school, the weekly radio show by for and about people who eschew factory learning. Open season on all things we might bump up against." Check out the blog and check out their show!

"Stopracialprofiling.CA is a Canadian website dedicated to a campaign to stop racial profiling in Canada. It brings together community groups, law makers, lawyers, activists, targets of racial profiling and all affected communities. We urge you to visit the various pages of this site and get involved."

(Via A Canadian Lefty in the Land of King George)

A listing of fifty fantasy & science fiction works that socialists should read, compiled by noted author in the field China Mieville. (Via A Canadian Lefty in the Land of King George, via Scribblingwoman)

This is a simple banner I made this morning that I will be rotating at BlogClicker, BlogExplosion and BlogAzoo to point to Progressive Blog Alliance.

Take it and use it as you wish. Please download it to your own server.

Thanks!

Juggling 43 progressive mailinglist subscriptions so you don't have to.

This site is incredible. Just check it out.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All text that is written by Dan Gillmor is to be colored black. All addititions, notes, and commentary are to be written iin grey (#999999).

Some time ago, I purchased two domains: reality-based-community.com and reality-based-community.org. I bought them in hopes someone might be interested in doing something with them, and to avoid having them fall into right-wing hands.

My energy is very limited, so I would like to hand these off. I think my fantasy was to help create something non-partisan, but, of course, reality-based -- which I think means progressive. I am open to ideas.

Anyone?

[This is my first post here, and I am not particularly tehnically skilled; I hope I don't mess it up.]

The right controls political discourse in America. If the debacle we have now was not enough to throw Bush and his "machiavellian minions" (Barbara Boxer quote) out, I shutter to think what would be enough. There are three big issues that progressives must lead on if we ever want to have a chance to balance the (never) Right wing's power:

- Media Deregulation - Fairness Doctrine - Term Limits

Media Deregulation

Media deregulation was clearly part of the strategy of the Republicans to drive profit motive into news reporting, then use that profit motive to influence and control the media. CNN and MSNBC cower before this administration because of it (and the fear of losing access). Here are a few facts from FreePress.net .

There's an interesting article in the St. Pete Times this morning that discusses a set of strategies for Democrats. The article essentially advises us to steal the Republican playbook if we hope to regain any ground we've lost over the years:

As Democratic leaders scratch their heads and try to figure out how to rebuild their party, they could learn a thing or two from the Republican playbook. In the past decade, the Republicans have mastered the art of political campaigns. It's not a matter of money or always having better candidates. The Republicans have simply outplayed the Democrats at every turn.

Alan Abramowitz of Donkey Rising writes: "With the holidays upon us, some of us might wish to be mindful of
who we patronize relative to their Election Cycle political donations,
as reported by the Center for Responsive Politics." Here are some of the top donars to the Republican party: