The Progressive Blog Alliance HQ

"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

Probably, many of you have heard this quote before. I think it is a quote which continues to resonate. But I wonder, how many of you know who said it, as well as when and where they said it? How many of you have read that speech or listened to it or are familiar with the context within which it was delivered?

The speech was given by Robert Kennedy forty years ago today, on June 6th, 1966 during his important visit to South Africa. Some friends of mine are making a documentary film about Senator Kennedy’s visit to South Africa and are currently raising funds to complete the post-production phase of the film.

Banda Aceh gained the attention of people around the world when a devastating Tsunami hit last December. People around the world contributed to help with relief efforts, but Banda Aceh has slowly slipped from people’s consciousness. Now, over half a year later, it returns to the news.

Banda Aceh suffered not only from the Tsunami, but from years of armed conflict. The international press is reporting that a new peace treaty has been signed in Banda Aceh. Two years ago, a peace deal was signed, which fell apart, so we shall see what happens with this peace treaty.

The devastation of the Tsunami on top of the devastation of the war has left many orphans. Bata Industries makes flip-flops in its factory in Jakarta. They were designed by orphans of the Tsunami and profits from the sale go to support the Schools for Aceh Foundation.

In North America, you can purchase these flip-flops through No Sweat!. No Sweat! is a company providing 100% union made apparel. If you click on the link, I get a commission on the sales. However, I would also encourage each of you that has a blog to set up a link to promote their products.

I have been hosting PBA HQ for several months now. Over the past month, we’ve been averaging over 6,000 hits per day. I’ve not asked for help or money because it is important to me for progressive bloggers to have a way to connect with one another.

However, I received an email the other day from someone asking me for help, and I thought I would pass on their request for help as a way in which we can all help one another.

No Sweat! is a company selling 100% union made apparel. This past weekend, I met with the head of the company. They have a compelling story to tell and I will be writing more about them in the coming weeks.

For now, if you are buying clothes, especially as we had back to school, please check out No Sweat!. If you follow the link, or click on the logo on the right, I get a 7% commission which will help me offset some of the costs of hosting this site. Beyond that, please sign up with No Sweat! as an affiliate and add a logo on your site. Many of us have spoken about the need to make sure workers have safe jobs and fair pay. This is a way we can work together to help make it happen.

I have posted the Progressive Democrats of America press release, British Intel Leak on Iraq: Congressional Letter Demands Investigation, over on Greater Democracy. Please read the press release and comment about it here, at Greater Democracy and on your own blogs.

I have been pretty busy with other things in my life (e.g. I have taken a paid position as Blogmaster for the DeStefano for Connecticut Governor, 2006 campaign. With that, I haven't been checking this site all that closely. However, today, I got an email from mythicflow about problems with comment and trackback spam. I have created a new page which addresses this. Generally, it should be blank, unless there is spam which is being deleted. I hope I have deleted all the spam, and haven't deleted any important comments. If you have problems with spam, please check this page out. If the problem persists, please contact me.

I have just added a quick and dirty despammer.

It wipes out messages that it thinks are spam. I think it may have had a few false positives, but it wiped out a LOT of spam.

Also, I know that a lot of people don't like the wysiwig editor for blog entries. Personally, I don't like wysiwig, so I have turned it off for me account. Any of you can do this by clicking on 'My account', then the 'Edit' tab, and the uncheck

'Enable rich text editor while authoring'

I hope this helps.

Aldon

 (Originally published in Greater Democracy and Orient Lodge)

In today’s New York Times, Robert Pear writes:  “that four television networks had turned down its request to run an advertisement opposing President Bush's effort to clamp down on medical malpractice lawsuits.”  He noted that the “networks said the advertisement violated their standards for advertising on controversial issues.”

By doing so, the fourth estate is failing its duties to promote public discourse about the issues that are most important to all Americans.

(The following is a message I received from Peter Rush [takebackourdemocracy@adelphia.net].  He is asking that others promote this as well.  Also, I would like to encourage people writing to their Senators to take a look at http://opengov.smartcampaigns.com, a site that I set up for people to post publicly letters that they have written to their elected officials and encourage the elected officials to publicly respond there).

There is an historic window of opportunity that will be open for no more than the next 48-72 hours. It will close when the Senate votes on the nomination of Alberto Gonzalez for Attorney General. At that time, if no Democrats cross the line and vote for him, if it is a straight party line vote, even if he is confirmed, a tremendous victory will have been won. Failure to achieve 100% Democratic opposition would be a devastating waste of a never-to-return opportunity.

At the Progressive Democrats of America Summit this past weekend, I led a workshop on blogging and got into many discussions about watching the media, acting local, etc.

Based on this, I would like to propose that we add categories for blog feeds based on their location.  For example, I am in Connecticut, and I know at least two other PBA blogs are from Connecticut, so I set up a Connecticut section:

Connecticut

So, I now have a few questions:  Are there other blogs out there that should be identified by location?  Should this be just for PBA blogs, or for all sources?  Are people writing about local politics?  Are their other things we should consider?

Please add your comments.