k / o

Gracias a tí Mercedes

2009-10-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

Mercedes Sosa, 1935-2009.

the circle of healthcare

2009-09-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota in the 70s, my mom would take my sisters and me to the local playground sometimes for lunch.

There was a program at the playground where kids from my neighborhood would get a free lunch in the summer. The idea was that so many kids showed up for school during the schoolyear not having eaten breakfast, that providing a lunch at the park in the summertime made sense. It was a simple meal. A baloney or salami sandwich, some chips, some carrots or raisins and a drink. We would sit in the field house in a big circle and eat lunch together.

One day in particular, I remember two sisters and a brother showing up as we were eating only to be told that the lunches had run out. One of the little girls started to cry. She was hungry. And, while my mom made sure that we all shared our lunches with her and her siblings, that moment burned itself into my memory the way childhood memories sometimes do.

I will never forget the taste of the baloney sandwich I was eating that day or the sight of that girl crying in the doorway feeling hungry and left out...

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the Circle of Healthcare

That story has been on my mind lately. I would like to use to it as an expanded analogy to help us discuss and understand the healthcare debate and the choices faced by Congress and the President.

All of us who have good health insurance in this country are like children at a playground hall sitting in a big circle eating lunch. We can call that the Circle of Healthcare, ie. the circle of those who have good coverage and don't live in fear of falling ill.

However, in the United States that circle isn't as big at it may seem, and no one sitting in that circle is safe from being summarily left out.

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who's left out

Tens of millions of Americans are underinsured or lack access to basic medical care even though they have insurance.

There are 25 million Americans who are underinsured, many of them middle and upper income Americans, and there are a further 36 million Americans who, while they ostensibly have adequate coverage, have inadequate access to healthcare practitioners: "a new report by the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) found that approximately 12 percent of the nations population, or one person out of every eight, are medically unserved and simply do not have access to basic care."

Given the above it is not surprising that 60% of the 1.5 million Americans who declare bankruptcy every year do so because of medical bills, and over three quarters of the approximately one million healthcare related bankruptcies per year in the United States are filed by people who already have insurance. And again, those filing bankruptcy due to medical bills were largely middle-class Americans:

Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

In addition to this, discrimination by health insurers against those with pre-existing conditions is rampant.

A recent national survey estimated that 12.6 million non-elderly adults – 36 percent of those who tried to purchase health insurance directly from an insurance company in the individual insurance market – were in fact discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition in the previous three years.

When the above totals are added to the number of uninsured Americans the crisis in the United States healthcare system is made clear. There were 46.3 million Americans without health insurance in 2008. With the current deep recession, that number is going to get worse:

All of these figures almost certainly will look considerably worse next year, since the economy has weakened further in 2009 and unemployment has risen sharply. The number of people in poverty will likely set a 50-year high, while the number of uninsured will likely climb toward the 50 million mark.

In sum, we have a clear picture of who is left out of the Circle of Healthcare in America, and the picture is grim.

There are over 60 million people who are "in the circle" but who are underinsured or without adequate access to basic healthcare. There are over 46 million without health insurance at all and left out of the circle completely, except as patients in emergency rooms. Further, the circle of health security specifically excludes the one million Americans who declare a health-care related bankruptcy every single year. Most of those folks are middle-class, homeowning families who have insurance. Finally, 36% of those who attempt to join the Circle of Healthcare by purchasing insurance from the individual market are discriminated against...that's over 12 million Americans in the last three years. In America, it is legal to discriminate against people when they get sick, to leave those who most need healthcare on their own, and millions have gone bankrupt and live in poverty for that fact alone.

The Circle of Healthcare in the United States is small, insecure and, for that reason, very profitable. We are all just one illness away from being that little girl at the door.

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but...that's not all...

There's are two more factors to add to this mix. Americans are getting less healthy every decade and the costs of healthcare are going up. To use just one metric, obesity rates are skyrocketing in the USA.

In 31 states, obesity rates exceed 25 percent, and in 49 states and Washington, D.C., the rates are above 20 percent. Overall, two-thirds of American adults are now obese or overweight, according to the report. [snip] The number of obese and overweight children has now climbed to 30 percent in 30 states, a troubling trend that could signal decades of weight-related health problems such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease as these children become adults.

On top of that, health care costs are only increasing and one of the best explanations for this increase in cost is simply a fundamental and widespread bias favoring profits over healthy outcomes pervasive to the US health care system.

In sum, Americans are less healthy than ever, and we can expect to pay more for health care expenses for years to come. The Circle of Healthcare, our society's ability to address a basic and central need of its citizens, is fundamentally broken and in desperate need of repair.

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political realities for progressives

As progressives, we get the moral and practical import of the story I used to introduce this essay. It's insane that children should go hungry in a society of plenty; it's immoral and it's impractical to boot. However, there's a reason that my story was rooted in the 1970s. The presidency of Ronald Reagan was founded on the idea that programs like the one that fed baloney sandwiches to hungry children at a city park should be abolished in the name of conservative governance, even if that made no sense. Ideology trumped sanity.

The Democrats now representing us in Congress, our Representatives and Senators, get this when it comes to health care. They know that we have failed to pass comprehensive healthcare reform for decades because of precisely this kind of ideological attack that has favored profits for insurance companies over healthy outcomes and peace of mind for the public. Decades of failed policy have brought us to this crisis. And after decades of ideological attacks on progressive political solutions, 2009 represents the first opportunity in a generation to pass laws that represent meaningful reform.

So, what's stopping us from taking bold progressive action to fix healthcare? What's the problem, why haven't we passed a bill?

Those are good questions and they lead to a set of political realities that we need to address.

reality one: there is powerful pressure for Democrats to take action this year

There is tremendous pressure on Democrats to vote to pass a plan this year that expands the circle of coverage to near universal levels, ends discrimination against the sick, regulates minimum acceptable coverage and out of pocket expenses for everyone, improves health outcomes through better access and preventive care, and begins to get runaway health care costs under control.

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reality two: public solutions work better than private ones

As progressives we know, however, that the best way to achieve the above goals when it comes to health care reform is to implement a public model of health care that takes the profit motive out of caring for our nation's health. Public solutions like Medicare, with meaningful regulations and programs that improve health outcomes are the best solutions. Given that, the vast majority of progressives would support a single-payer policy, or "Medicare for All." However, with that policy for better or for worse "off the table," millions of us have joined with some members of Congress and the President insisting that a robust public insurance option open to all Americans be part of the final bill that passes into law this year. (Important: the public option currently written into the bills before Congress is not, by and large, what many of us progressives currently think it is.)

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reality three: the biggest impediment to the public solutions progressives favor is the insurance industry

The political space to pass that bill is defined not so much by an ideological breakdown of the members of Congress, but by the power of the insurance industry.

We need to understand that last reality and incorporate it into our fight to pass comprehensive health care reform with a robust public option. Here's my take:

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who are the big insurers and why should we talk about them by name

Take a look at this finding from a report on California's big insurers prepared by the California Nurses Association:

For the first half of 2009, as the national debate over healthcare reform was escalating, the rejection rates are even more striking.

Claims denial rates by leading California insurers, first six months of 2009:

PacifiCare-- 39.6 percent
Cigna -- 32.7 percent
HealthNet -- 30 percent
Kaiser Permanente -- 28.3 percent
Blue Cross -- 27.9 percent
Aetna -- 6.4 percent

"Every claim that is denied represents a real patient enduring pain and suffering. Every denial has real, sometimes fatal consequences," said Burger.

PacifiCare, for example, denied a special procedure for treatment of bone cancer for Nick Colombo, a 17-year-old teen from Placentia, Calif. Again, after protests organized by Nick's family and friends, CNA/NNOC, and netroots activists, PacifiCare reversed its decision. But like Nataline Sarkisyan, the delay resulted in critical time lost, and Nick ultimately died. "This was his last effort and the procedure had worked before with people in Nick's situation," said his older brother Ricky.

Naming names is powerful. Trust me, the California Nurses, a labor union, knew exactly what they were doing with that study. They named names, presented compelling data and made it real with a personal story. Too often the Democratic party and we on the blogs do not do this. Our politicians tell the story, but don't call out corprations by name. We should not let them do that. And we should not do it ourselves. Read what Cigna CEO Edward Hanway had to say about public pressure in an interview he did with (big surprise) FOX News. (What Hanway doesn't tell you is that Cigna profits were up 13% to $263 million in the 4Q in 2008.)

When we challenge the insurance industry directly we expand the political space for meaningful healthcare reform including a robust public option. Don't take my word for it.

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the single most effective moments in Obama's speech were his critiques of insurers

A David Binder Research focus group (pdf) prepared for the DNC showed that the most effective moments of Barack Obama's speech all involved criticism of the insurance industry. Three three most powerful topics among a cross section of Arizona voters were:

-Insurance Industry Reforms
-Insurance Industry Accountability
-Increasing Choice and Competition

In fact,

The highest sustained positive ratings in the speech, nearly 90 on the 0-100 scale, occurred as the President said, “Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick."

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people get it

Instead of taking as our start point in pushing for comprehensive health care reform a linear, partisan picture of our nation, we should instead take as our start point the Circle of Healthcare. In making our case for reform, we need to define a Circle of Healthcare that includes every American and takes on the insurers who've picked and chosen whom to include and whom to exclude from that circle for decades.

It doesn't matter who represents you in Congress, you probably know someone who has been denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Whatever the PVI of your district, you probably know someone personally who has had to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills passed on to collection agencies by a big insurer. Rural and urban citizens alike understand that insurance is meaningless if you don't have access to basic care whether the limitation is your rural address or your ability to find a translator. And all of us know that we have become less healthy as a nation, that we pay more for insurance and care, and that we have less security when it comes to our health insurance today all while big companies have made billions of dollars in profits.

People get it. Even some folks who marched on Washington DC yesterday get it and know where to place the blame. Our nation is less healthy, less secure and more vulnerable to being denied coverage or going broke today over a health problem than we were 15 years ago.

When it comes to health care we all can imagine what it might be like to be that little girl at the door.

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what to do?

I think we can do three things.

1. We can rally behind the President and Congress and help them put pressure on the big insurance companies. We do this not simply by, for example, participating in the President's letter-writing campaign to members of Congress, but by helping expand the playing field and the circle of debate by taking on big insurance companies and naming them by name.

2. Those of us committed to public solutions to the healthcare crisis need to process and understand the following realities in our efforts to work the progressive block strategy:

-all Democrats need a bill
-the bill has to work, and robust public solutions are the best way to make it work
-insurance companies are the obstacle to making comprehensive reform

3. Finally, we need to understand the tremendous force that is the pressure to pass this bill. There is tremendous pressure to pass a bill. Our ability to navigate the pressure cooker of the negotiations over this bill and pass meaningful public solutions into law depends on our ability to factor this reality into our equation and mature as a movement.

We have to learn to work both/and.

If we go too far in our efforts and kill this bill, we kill our coalition. If we don't hold the line using the tools at our disposal the insurance industry will win a package of giveaways. Big corporations are used to negotiations involving bargaining hard up till the last minute. Too often the last decades, we Democrats have not proven as adept. History has shown us that the only meaningful change worth making involves fighting hard with unity and determination.

The battle over healthcare reform will go to the final hour and all of us will need to keep a united front.

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conclusion

When I was a boy, I lived in an America where providing a sandwich to hungry children made moral and political sense. As I grew older, I came of age in an America where Ronald Reagan defined our national priorities by cutting funding for those very programs and implying that the circle of well being for our nation was drawn so that large corporations should be free to pick and choose those who thrive and those who fall behind.

Like all of you I reject that vision of America. Millions of our brothers and sisters agree.

In a prosperous and inclusive America, there is room in the Circle of Healthcare for everyone.

We are on the brink of making great change. No one said it was going to be easy. No one said that we would go in a straight line from A to B.

This fight for healthcare reform is worth fighting for right up to and through the very end. We need to do this standing side by side. We have spoken with one voice to our fellow Americans and what we've said has resonated loud and clear.

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.

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Obama's Health Care Speech

2009-09-09T23:33:00.001-07:00

My take away from this historic speech.

We have our work cut out for us. But we are in a much better position tonight than yesterday.

I thought the speech showed courage. Obama's presidency is now staked on passing health care reform and that reform includes a public insurance option open to all Americans.

Further, Obama provided (and will continue to provide) the American public with a clear and emotional understanding that those who are most rooted in the status quo and opposed to reform are the insurance companies who have profited from that status quo.

It is a simple and powerful argument. Our nation has a moral obligation to end discrimination against the sick.

To that end, there are going to be new laws and regulations of the insurance industry passed with broad public support. Progressives should work together with all Democrats to make those laws the best laws possible. We should broaden our emphasis from a too tight emphasis on the public option. This makes political and ideological sense because the moral logic behind these new regulations (that no one should go broke if they get sick, that no one should die for lack of affordable care) make the best and most publicly understandable case against the big corporations and other interests most opposed to reform.

The question for progressive Democrats now is to choose how we are going to be stakeholders in this process.

It's much easier to take a position that really amounts to "heads we win and tails you lose" with the President than to effectively get his back. Politically, if we turn up our noses at the bill, we are turning our backs on a president who has a come a good way out on the limb with us. Truth is, if health care fails now that the president has extended himself, we all fail.

All Democrats need to realize that we are standing, as we always have been in this fight, together. My position has been that supporting Obama offered a good deal for progressives and the netroots if we chose to take him up on it. I think that belief was vindicated tonight.

The President devoted seven long paragraphs of his speech tonight to the public option. All of us who pushed Obama on standing for the public option have to understand the significance of that substantive commitment. Those seven paragraphs were not just a mention, but an argument for. Not just an explanation, but a defense of. And, at that, a defense rooted in a powerful critique of the insurance industry and its anti-competitive ways.

Will bloggers now turn our guns on the insurance industry and cease needless attacks on proven progressives?

It makes pragmatic sense.

Standing with the president and building public sentiment against the insurance industry is the most powerful way to create space for Blue Dogs to move from the GOP.

That is what we all want. Not just as policy but as an expression of our moral compass. Comprehensive healthcare reform is a crucial civil rights battle of our times.

Yes, progressives should whip Congress to stand strong for a robust public option, and, yes that will be a tough battle, but we should also fight so that the regulatory reforms and provisions in this bill are the strongest possible. That makes political and moral sense, too.

At the end of the day, we should be talking to our neighbors and readers about Wellpoint and Cigna, not building misplaced outrage against proven allies.

Obama defined the limits of the possible tonight. Our job is to bend those limits to towards lasting progress on health care reform by building sentiment against insurers and in favor of comprehensive reform. Yes, there will be differences among us about the exact specifics of that reform and the tactics used to get there. However, it is clear tonight that...aside from cynics shouting and jeering from the sandbars...we are in this boat together.

Whether and how we get to the opposite shore is up to us.

It's "non-negotiable:" the Demand for a Public Option

2009-08-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"I got a telephone in my bosom"

2009-08-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

There's something powerful in this eminently rewatchable clip from Richie Havens' set at Woodstock...especially the moment that opens up after he sings the line "I got a telephone in my bosom":

I was curious about that line. "I got a telephone in my bosom." We know from various sources that Havens was improvising at this point in his three hour set. Havens was ad-libbing lyrics using folk and blues and gospel motifs. We also know that in the process Havens created what many think was one of the signature moments of Woodstock...when Havens called out..."Mother" "Father" Brother" "Sister"...and seemed to crack open the spiritual space for what became the Woodstock festival.

Being a language geek, I was curious about the line..."I got a telephone in my bosom"...so I googled it.

In the process, I found this amazing website, Midwest45s.org.

And that led me after a little research to this 45 from the Amazing Farmer Singers of Chicago and this powerful song:

"I got a telephone in my bosom."

Funny thing is though...per sources I could find that recording was made after Woodstock if the 1974 formation date for the Farmer Singers is right (though the song sounds to me like it could be earlier.)

"I got a telephone in my bosom" seems to be a bit of a mystery. So I kept looking.

Then I found this link. Which explained things, including the story of Haven's Woodstock set, a bit more:

"Freedom" is the name of Haven's best-known song, the one that famously evolved out of an improvisation at the end of his accidental three-hour opening set at Woodstock. He and his two-man group were meant to be fourth on the bill, but they were thrown on stage as the first because, unlike some of the other acts, Havens and company were present and accounted for, easy to set up, and all importantly, had not ingested the infamous brown acid.

"I went and did my 40 minutes, I walked off and they said, ‘Richie, can you do about four more songs?’ No one was there to go on. I went back and sang the four songs. I walked off. ‘Richie… four more?’ They did that six times until I realized, I don't have another song. I'm done. I've sung every song I know. It's two hours and forty-five minutes later… and that's when I start that long intro, that's me trying to figure out what I'm going to play, and I yell out the thing about the guitar microphone… please, let me stall a little bit more!"

After about a minute of freelancing a percussive riff in his distinctive open-D tuning, accompanied by an Afro-Cuban conga beat, he cried the word "freedom," and then repeated it eight more times. "I just went with that… all of a sudden, 'Motherless Child' came out. I hadn't sung that song in 14 or 15 years. I used to sing it early on in the Village." He also slipped in a couple of secularized verses from a song he calls "I Got a Telephone in My Bosom" (a variation on the song that became known as "Jesus is on the Mainline"), which he learned during a brief gospel education. And though he was in a state of improvisational ecstasy, Havens could still sense that by participating in Woodstock, he was taking part in history.

"They can't hide us anymore" was the thought that went through his head upon seeing the masses at Max Yasgur's Farm that day. At first observing the scene through the floorboards of the helicopter that was delivering him to the gig, and later from his vantage point on the stage, "I thought, ‘when the pictures come out in the newspaper, they'll see we are now above ground. We're no longer relegated to the underground.’"

Following that lead, I looked for the origins of "Jesus is on the Mainline" and found a reference to Mississippi Fred McDowell and the Hunter's Chapel Singers which turned up this sample clip. As much as I looked I could not find a version of "Jesus on the Mainline" that includes Haven's "bosom" lyric.

However, in the midst of all that searching, I stumbled on this Fred McDowell version of "Goin down to the River", which, while NOT the song in question was just too powerful not to share. It is a fitting place to close this post:

Wow.

PS 22 Sings

2009-08-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

For more go here!

not the Last Time...or the first time

2009-07-27T23:34:00.001-07:00

Listen to this:

And then listen to this:

Next check this out:

And now...listen to some of this:

Bittersweet may be right...

but this is the stuff that will get you through the night.

Try this...

2009-07-25T00:17:00.000-07:00

Classic Joy Division...

and a version that, somehow, both works and makes me value the original more:

California agrees to a budget...

2009-07-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

Per Calitics:

For a women's century: repost

2009-05-07T19:41:00.001-07:00

From k/o, November, 5th, 2005:

In the worst ways, mass media offered, and continue to offer, a vision of feminism to the public that suggested it was a movement for equal rights that would make women be like men. The fact that the feminist movement was equally critical of male identity formation within patriarchy was rarely given attention in the media. Clearly, the aspect of reformist feminism most people could understand was the insistence on equal pay for equal work. Coupled with that was the stereotype of women become pseudo-men. In the final analysis, mass media and the mass public have shown a willingness to embrace women acting like patriarchal men while they eschew feminist attempts to transform male and female roles.

-bell hooks, rebel's dilemma 1998

I'm a man and I'm a feminist. There's nothing remarkable about that, it's how I was raised.

I was raised by a strong, brilliant and caring woman, who is still very much "my mom." And I was raised by a strong, brilliant and gentle man who is still very much "my dad." I have two sisters with whom I shared the experience of growing up and being raised by our parents in St. Paul, Minnesota in the 1970's and 80's.

Who I am was forged in that context. That context is the essential part of me. My family's shared experience, growing up side by side with my sisters, being raised by my folks, is what, essentially, made me.

I think most women "get" that kind of thinking...thinking of one's self in this relational and rooted way. I think most women's politics are deeply informed by this mode of thinking. Frankly, however, most of the men who run our country don't get it. Where women understand the core feminist values of context, consensus and community, most men in our society do not. Men, in particular our leaders, tend to take those three "c's" for granted, and it shows.

Feminism is a strong word. As a concept it is currently more reviled than that other current bete noire, socialism, though they both represent, on some level, deeply shared, positive and hopeful human ideals: community, empowerment, the common good. Now, I don't think this on the outs status is an accident. Nor do I think that feminism's "ill repute" represents some nefarious, wholly intentional plot.

Simply put, the "isms" of the status quo...corporate capitalism, militarism, religious fundamentalism, and nationalism...form a bundle of interests and structures that collude organically to favor what used to get called patriarchy but what can also be summarized in present day terms as: national governments dominated by men on behalf of the military industrial complex and vested corporate interests. Like a lot of folks, male and female, I think these isms are killing our planet.

Of the "isms" we might replace or modify these with: a people's globalism, feminism, environmentalism (or "green economics"), humanism and a democratic market-based socialism...feminism is, politically, in my view, the crucial one. And here I am not talking about feminism as an intellectual project so much as a pragmatic and political program to empower women and change the playing field of political and economic power. In my view, the central question of our times is what women around the globe will decide to do with the political and economic challenges of the 21st century...what they will make of their lives in this context. I am convinced our collective history rests on the decisions women make and the actions women take going forward. In so many ways, our future depends on women's empowerment.

Now, I am not an academic expert on feminism, but I've read Audre Lorde, Betty Friedan and June Jordan, This Bridge They Call our Backs and Dorothy Day. I'm familiar with the intellectual history of women's struggle and understand that its roots extend deep into the intellectual and political history of the west. I've also lived long enough to know that abstractions (like those of my own here) do not do justice to common-sense lived experience, as the women above knew well. I'd like to acknowledge that speaking from one's experience and limitations is feminism too. And I would like to speak frankly, then, as one man living and working in this time and this place, and understanding my own limitations.

In my experience, motherhood (a loaded and powerful term wherever and whenever it is used) is the crux of the matter. Having and raising children...in terms of the time and risks it takes, the commitment involved, and the "social norms" of how women are universally expected to take charge of child rearing and do the bulk of its work...forms the nexus through which most men view women, and, oftentimes, through which women view themselves and their political lives, whether they choose to have children or not.

Children are factual, real, necessary...and hard work. Women know this. Many men don't. In my personal and professional life, and as a man in my 30's, I can attest that motherhood changes the political and economic playing field for women. While men I've known have been exemplary parents and dads, there is really no comparison between what is essentially voluntary virtue on the part of most men...and the fact that for women...pregnancy, breastfeeding, child care, being the de facto primary caregiver, the whole package, comes with the choice to have a child. In 2005 we still don't have adequate health care, child care, or a minimum wage that would make of motherhood anything other than the herculean effort without much of a safety net that it is for most women in our society to this day. Employers, unless one is quite lucky, still don't "get" pregnancy. Most young mothers I know are run ragged by the demands of our society.

As a man, it has been clear to me, however, as it is to most men I know, that there is no difference in political insight, intellectual analysis or leadership capabilities between women and men. That is crucial, because so much in our society, so much of our structures, implicitly assumes the opposite. Aside from that "little thing" called having and raising children, we are, estrogen and testosterone fluxes aside, in reality very much equals, though society does not treat us that way. Despite that inequity in treatment, it is clear that our world needs the input, the intellectual firepower and the lived experience and wisdom of women here at the birth of the 21st Century. In that sense we desperately need a rebirth of feminism.

I am convinced we will not achieve a sustainable and peaceful human presence on this planet without women's full and equal participation in our political and economic lives. Given that at various times in human history and prehistory, women's empowerment and input may have been greater, effectively, than it is now, it is time for a women's century.

In essence, this essay proposes we examine the intersection of women and politics for the next century...that we take apart how men, who have heretofore dominated our political and economic lives in the industrial era, have created, intentionally or not, a political environment antithetical to the intersection of women and politics, if not the intersection of motherhood and full participation in our economic lives. Greed, selfishness and "one-up-manship" rule the day. By its nature, whatever our democratic ideals, our current system produces and rewards wars like the one in Iraq, produces and rewards torture like that of Abu Ghraib, produces and rewards Enron-like corporate scandals and profiteering as a part of its inherent nature. Our system produces and rewards judges like John Roberts and Samuel Alito, as well; and a society where an 8-1 male Supreme Court is acceptable, indeeed, where it can be countenanced philosophically, is one in which an unquestioned patriarchy rules the day.

If we are to change this status quo, we need to change this male-oriented and dominated state of affairs. And that means reviving and revaluing the project of feminism as the essential start point to making fundamental change. We need to make explicit, and quite often, literal room for women, and hence, for mothers, and the values of consensus and community, in the structure of our political and economic life. Women must take their proper place, even as they change the very meaning of that place, from the High Court and the Senate to the board room and even the military high command. If the 21st Century is to represent a turning point in human history, it will be because women will take their rightful, and fully equal place at the table, and then change the nature of that table.

This must not be done, as so often has been the case, by forcing women to conform to the current very male requirements of political and economic participation. We, men and women together, must change the broken and biased rules of public life. In this sense, as bell hooks points out cogently in the lead-in quote of this piece, feminism is as much about men as it is about women; true feminism includes a revolution in men's roles too.

In saying this, I don't pretend to be saying something new or unique...in fact, I am simply reiterating a core value that has, in my view, got lost by the wayside somewhat. Feminism is important to all of us. The Alito nomination has brought that home for me.

Now, in my view, the important places this change will happen, in contrast to our Western obsession with our own domestic feminisms and politics...is around the globe. The most significant decisions and developments in this regard may well be made in places like Karachi and Bangkok, in Seoul and Johannesberg and their surrounding countrysides. It is critical, for a women's century, that women come to the fore around the globe, and that they do so in their own way, relating to their specific circumstances and histories. The crucial interactions here may involve micro loans and small-scale entrepeneurism...or a large-scale movement for fair trade, education, reproductive rights and sustainable agriculture. Regardless, women are on the front lines of the horizontal reorganization of global political activism that is challenging the vertical, top-down, hierarchy of the World Bank and the U.N. Truth be told, women have always have been on the front lines in this regard.

It is critical to understand that as women redefine and stake out new roles in political life, they redefine men's roles as well. In my view, that is the reason we have seen a full scale push back from the right on feminism. And it is why the gender imbalance in the United States federal governement...our Congress, our Executive Branch and on our Supreme Court...must end. Reform of the United States government cannot happen with the "good old boy" networks still in place. It is not enough to vote out the "good old boys" or to redefine their clubs to include a few women. We must redefine what public service means for men and women alike. We need to drain the swamp which breeds the "good old boys" in the first place.

In this sense, I think the feminist values of context, consensus and community will form the crux of how feminism will help move our society from one based, essentially, on war and greed...those twin obsessions of the the militarized state...to one based on sustainability and mutuality, on democratic community and interdependence on all levels. As we can see from around the globe, the current wave of feminism is very much about "fact-based" and "reality-based" pragmatism; the world powers must see that and understand it. This is a project as bold and necessary as any yet undertaken in our short history on this planet, even if, at the end of the day, it won't look like 'revolutions' past.

Men throughout our history have priveleged a kind of rhetoric for change that is essentially full of machismo. Without dismissing the validity and heroism of previous sturggles for change, it is essential that we envision the possibility of a different kind of struggle, a different, and perhaps, more pragmatic way of making progressive change. Motherhood, femininity, and womanhood represent a direct connection to a kind of continuity, a sense of connectedness that for women is simply not abstract. It is those values we see in the worldwide movement for women's empowerment. Continuity and connectedness are not 'known traits' of most previous movements for change, which privilege seismic shifts and dramatic breaks. Taking a cue from Rosa Parks, and lesser known heroes like Maudelle Shirek, we should renew our commitment to already established models of women's activism and the values they incorporate. We should seek to understand how these models and values apply to every last one of us. It is high time that feminism and women's empowerment help us look at the bigger picture and move our politics into one of making long term change based on a long term vision.

The 21st century, it is my deepest hope, will be a century that will come to be known by history as a "women's century" not because it priveleged or advantaged women over men, but because, finally, we made a decisive move towards a society that incorporated all of us, and made equal use of the full extent of our manifold insights, talents and abilities.

We must define a politics that puts the emphasis on context, consensus and community...that revalues feminism as a movement for pragmatic global women's empowerment. That pragmatism and revaluing is, in part, a lesson I learned from my mother and my father. I am convinced, thinking on their example, that it will be when the world incorporates positive and culturally specific reinventions of both men's and women's roles that we will achieve what is at the core of the feminism's long held dream: that, as brothers and sisters, as equals, we will be able to work together around the globe, honoring our mothers and fathers, to build a better, safer and more peaceful world for all of our children.

{Permalink}

Try this song...it'll get 'ya

2009-03-24T23:44:00.000-07:00

It's Jim White w/ Aimee Mann.

NUHW: "Let us vote!"

2009-03-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

{This blog post was originally posted on the blog Calitics}

In the five weeks since SEIU International trusteed California's SEIU-UHW West something enormous has transpired in our state: California's healthcare workers have spoken.

What those workers have said is crystal clear: We choose NUHW.

::

A majority of the workers from 350 healthcare facilities...representing over 91,000 California healthcare workers...have petitioned to be represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) in just five weeks time. That includes an absolute majority of the 50,000 healthcare workers in the Kaiser network of hospitals and clinics. It also includes homecare workers in Fresno County who collected almost twice the number of the petition signatures necessary to trigger an election that will allow 10,000 homecare workers in Fresno county to secure representation by NUHW. That total also includes numerous workers at smaller facilities like those working at Orange County's Western Medical Center in Anaheim and Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana who gathered petitions from an absolute majority of the 500 healthcare workers at their two facilities.

A remarkable development: 91,000 Healthcare Workers, 350 Facilities, 5 weeks

All told, this dramatic development tells a powerful underlying story that goes beyond describing the initial organizing success of the newly-born National Union of Healthcare Workers, NUHW. This outcome would simply not have been possible outside of the context of thousands of California union members rising up to forge their own democratic response to SEIU's trusteeship. Winning majority petitions from 91,000 workers at 350 facilties in five weeks is the kind of organizing victory that is possible only when members have built a powerful culture of member leadership and activism. Make no mistake, these thousands of petitions were signed one person at a time in workplaces all over our state. This success was won by member leaders reaching out to their fellow healthcare workers in an often hostile environment of intimidation and misinformation created by SEIU.

No one inside or outside the labor movement can doubt that workers who can organize and execute such a petition drive on short notice under such adverse conditions are not also fully empowered to negotiate effectively for their own contracts and for the best interests of their patients.

And that's the point.

A Fundamental Difference of Opinion

California progressives need to understand that at the core of the disagreement between the healthcare workers choosing to join NUHW and Andy Stern's SEIU International is a fundamental difference of opinion about exactly the kind of member-driven organizing that California's healthcare workers have just powerfully demonstrated to the world. Andy Stern has a top-down approach to labor organizing. In fact, Andy's top-down philosophy is part of why he felt he could trustee California's UHW, one of the most progressive and successful locals in the nation, without consequence. Undoubtedly, when Stern trusteed UHW and stripped its staff and elected leaders, he did not anticipate this dramatic grassroots response. Stern's choice to trustee SEIU-UHW West was premised on the idea that California's healthcare workers would not choose to rise up, en masse, reject the removal of their elected leaders and advocate for an election to choose a new union.

Clearly, Stern miscalculated. Stern was not only in error in his appalling strategic choice to trustee SEIU-UHW, he was even more gravely mistaken in underestimating the organizing power and determination of California's healthcare workers to choose to build their own democratic, member-led union.

The tens of thousands of California healthcare workers who have petitioned for elections to join NUHW in 350 facilities not only fundamentally disagree with Stern about what worker empowerment looks like and how that empowerment impacts bargaining outcomes and patient care. Those workers have clearly demonstrated in these last five weeks why top-down, undemocratic leaders are never a match for the power of grassroots democratic organizing.

Supporting California's Healthcare Workers is Common Sense

California's progressives, whether grassroots activists or elected officials and leaders, should pay heed. In the ongoing political battles we face in our state, the empowered organizing exhibited by the member leaders of NUHW is exactly the kind of activism we need. Whether it was opposing Prop 8 or rallying to fight Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's healthcare workers are no strangers to movement politics and California progressives: they have been on the front lines of California progressive activism for years. In fact, for progressives advocating for a host of issues in our state, supporting California's healthcare workers as they petition for elections to form their own, new, vibrant member-led union is common sense.

It may be that for some, the disagreement between California's healthcare workers and Andy Stern presents an inconvenient conflict. That need not be the case. If Andy Stern truly supports the guiding principle of the Employee Free Choice Act...that workers should be free to choose...then he should let California's healthcare workers...who've already chosen NUHW...vote to join NUHW and set aside his lawsuits, intimidation and threats. It may be inconvenient to some, but the truth is that whenever you read about Andy Stern and "free choice," you should remember that the only thing standing in the way of elections for the representation of 91,000 healthcare workers in 350 facilities in our state is Andy Stern himself.

Time and again, healthcare workers in California have put themselves on the line for progressive causes; in the last five weeks a proud and growing majority of them have chosen NUHW. Today those workers have one simple request to make of their fellow Californians and Andy Stern:

Let us vote!

::

Here's how you can help:

JOIN our mailing list (by going to the sidebar and signing up for updates). TELL your elected California representatives that you support California healthcare workers' freedom of choice to form NUHW through fast, free and fair elections, without harassment and intimidation from their employers or from SEIU. (Enter your zip in box and hit enter.) VISIT our website and DONATE to support our movement. And, most importantly, if you have friends or family who are healthcare workers and would like to join our movement to build a vibrant, member-led National Union of Healthcare Workers, please SPREAD THE WORD.

{Paul Delehanty is a volunteer with the National Union of Healthcare Workers.}

Courage Campaign: "Fidelity"

2009-02-05T17:19:00.000-08:00

Watch the video:

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Sign the petition:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/divorce

Amy Thigpen: United Healthcare Workers Holding Our Ground

2009-01-28T01:39:00.000-08:00

{Amy Thigpen and members of UHW are sleeping in their union halls across California tonight due the threat of imminent seizure of those buildings by SEIU International, which instituted a takeover of UHW West today. I welcome her guest post on this blog.}

Last night I slept on the kind of carpet you don't really want to examine too closely. It's splotched with decades of coffee stains and salsa and too many conversations still seem to hang in the stale air, but there I was, curled up on my air mattresses in the union hall in downtown Oakland, the home of United Healthcare Workers West, my union. On my right my sister the Medical Assistant slept peacefully, on my left my sister the Call Center Representative, across my sister the Ultrasound Technician, and my sister the Optical Technician. All of them healthcare workers, member leaders and officers in our union. I realized that I loved this stale, stained room, with carpets held together by duct tape, I love the room because it holds the waking dreams of my sister and brothers in UHW-W. The place may be held together by duct tape but we as a union are held together by something stronger.
Whenever my union brothers or sisters ask me to do something, anything -- lead a chant, bargain over working conditions, join them on the picket line -- I say yes. Why? Because everything I've been part of as a steward and Medical Social Worker with UHW for the last two years has been about furthering a cause that is just and right and about empowering workers. And not just any workers, workers who provide in-home care for elders: bathing them, cleaning their homes, feeding them, people who do the work that matters most, even though it's often valued least.

Convalescent workers and homecare workers get paid far less than their colleagues in the hospitals. But as members of UHW, Hospital workers and Long Term Care workers are joined together in one statewide healthcare union. We've raised standards for all, including some of the best wages and benefit packages under the Mariner contracts settled late last year. And when I say we've raised the standards, I mean we. We bargain our own contracts, we elect our leaders from stewards to our executive board of rank and file members. So why are we sleeping in the union hall?

Despite all of the member-led success of UHW, our International Union -- SEIU -- placed us in trusteeship today. It's a long story, and a very well publicized one, but it's really not a new story. It's an old one, about leaders, in this case, Andy Stern, president of the International Union, forgetting who they represent. It's a story about a few people, our International Executive Board, who care more about concentrating power than the reality of the workers they are supposed to represent.

So we're sleeping in the UHW hall and we're unified in our worksites, only unfortunately instead of concentrating our efforts on fighting for better wages or working conditions or patient care, we have to fight our own International Union. At a time when our country has pulled together in an historic way, putting the needs of the collective above the few and the privileged, it's a terrible irony that Andy Stern would choose to attack and destroy, instead of building on this momentum. Luckily, though Stern and his trustees may have forgotten about workers, people like my sisters and brothers have not, and we will not.

Tonight I'm going to sleep on the stained carpet again surrounded by my sisters and brothers. If Stern and his trustees disturb us, try to bust into the Hall, cut off the power, the water, we'll resist. We'll hold this duct taped hall as long as we can, and if we have to yield our hall, we'll take our fight to the facilities, to the courts. We will hold our union and build our union. How am I so sure? Because I believe in the power of each of us bound to the next by common values and a common goal: to improve the lives of healthcare workers and patients, a goal we're all ready to lose sleep over, to fight for and to win.

-Amy Thigpen

(For more on this struggle read: www.seiuvoice.org.)

SEIU "Caught"

2009-01-21T23:33:00.000-08:00

url link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk06bbiDygw

Visit this link to sign a petition on behalf of UHW: http://www.seiuvoicestopthecuts.org

China 2008: Leslie Chang's Factory Girls

2008-12-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

Read this.

Hope, Oakland Convention Center, November 2008

2008-12-12T12:35:00.001-08:00

For the full story behind this video read this excellent essay:

let's dance

2008-12-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

It's good to be back...

Something to Do

2008-05-28T05:23:00.000-07:00

Summer is almost here. Summer of 2008.

While we do not yet have a nominee for certain, I think we can say with a high degree of confidence that Senator Obama achieving a majority of the overall pledged delegates in Kentucky last Tuesday will prove to be, ultimately, what secured him the nomination of the Democratic Party in 2008. This was, and always has been, as both candidates and their surrogates agreed at the outset, a contest for pledged delegates.

The thousands of you who played a role in that achievement, that majority, deserve a massive round of appreciation and praise.

Now's when the hard part begins...

::

Some of us were here on the internets blogging in 2003 and 2004. (Many more were readers and have since joined the discussion.) Those were different times.

To be a Democrat in 2003 was to have watched in successive election years (2000 and 2002) our party lose ground despite the hard work of so many good people with solid values and amazing ideas. 2004, we felt, was going to be different.

Some of us supported a guy named Howard Dean. Some of us supported a guy named Wesley Clark. Many fewer of us supported candidates like John Kerry, or John Edwards or Dennis Kucinich (whom I voted for in the CA primary in 2004). A very, very few of us supported Dick Gephardt.

Yep. That was me.

2004, ultimately, proved to be a massive disappointment for us. It ended up being a year on par with 2000 and 2002. And, yes, that sucked.

But something happened in the aftermath of that loss, something different from what had gone on in 2000 and 2002. As a party and as a blogosphere, we matured and we rallied, and, yes, we came together and renewed our engagement instead of having a pity party and disengaging or giving up.

We changed. And as we changed, the times changed with us. Our hard work paid off, and we redoubled our effort.

Howard Dean became the Chairman of the DNC.

George Bush failed in his attempt to privatize Social Security. Conservatism failed in its response to the natural and, then, man-made disaster that was Hurricane Katrina. And we here in the netroots rallied.

We formed local blogs. We supported long-shot insurgent candidates. We got organized locally. We believed. And in 2006 we worked our asses off for change.

And we won.

::

2008 is the natural consequence of all that hard work.

We have a candidate, Barack Obama, who...while different from Chairman Dean in some respects...is similar to Howard Dean in key areas. Both opposed the war from the beginning and both are firm believers in the greatness of what we can achieve when we organize ourselves at the grassroots level; both men are rooted in the 50 State Strategy as the most powerful way to grow the Democratic Party and enact the reforms we seek.

You have the power is the natural corollary to change comes from the bottom up.

This has been a grassroots campaign for the nomination, and, if things go as they seem to be headed, 2008 will mark the first grassroots campaign for President.

We in the netroots have a role to play in that.

::

I want to make a simple invitation tonight.

In the coming weeks I'll be letting you know all the various ways you can maximize your effectiveness this summer and fall whether on behalf of the nominee of our party or working for a candidate downticket in a local race.

For right now, I'd like to highlight two tools that you can sign up for and learn to use in ten minutes. Both of these tools relate to Barack Obama and his campaign, but the basic principle behind them applies to any campaign in any locale.

First, if you haven't already, I'd encourage you to sign up at MyBarackObama.com, or MyBO as they call it in the campaign.
MyBarackObama.com is the social networking wing of the campaign. It's where you can blog, where you can find friends, and where, most importantly, you can get linked up with other folks who support Barack Obama who live near you so that you can take action together.

For now, I'd like to invite you to join me and a bunch of other readers of DailyKos.com at MyBarackObama.com. You can do this in three easy steps:

1. You'll have to sign up.

2. You'll have to search for and join a group called Kossacks for Obama. (You should also enter your zip code and join a group near you.)

3. If you're willing, you can also be my friend! (Hint, my name is Paul Delehanty..User 276 on Page 12 of Kossacks for Obama...search for me, I should be easy to find.)

Once you've done all that, you will have begun to use a tool we didn't have in 2004. Social Networking, or what some people call Web 2.0, is a way for you to have your personal space within the campaign to make Barack Obama our next President.

You can blog, you can fundraise, and, most importantly, you can link up with likeminded people near you and all over the USA and abroad. Currently, I only have 1 friend. You can help me change that, too!

::

Social networking is a big deal. It's actually, and I'm not bullshitting here, our best hope of building the kind of network we need to build in one summer and fall to make victory in 2008 not just a possibility, but a overwhelming likelihood.

We need to be registering voters and getting folks plugged in...now. You can help with that...and I intend to write diaries that show you how.

Now, for the second thing to do.

This is really easy. It's more simple than anything you'll do all week.

I'd like to invite you to join an open Google Group, a listserv, called Netroots for Barack Obama. There's 122 of us there. I think we should try to double that.

A listserv is a powerful tool. Yes, it takes learning how to set your email browser to forward the messages into one folder...or subscribing to a daily digest instead of receiving every email as it's sent. But, once you've got the hang of it, a listserv like the Netroots for Barack Obama google group is an extremely powerful way to stay connected to what folks who support Barack are thinking and doing day to day.

::

That's it.

That's all I'm asking you to do this weekend. It will take ten minutes.

However, in those ten minutes you will have signed on to use two tools that we did not have in 2004...the Google Group and the Social Networking Site.

With those two tools...in addition to reading your favorite blogs...you will have plugged yourself in to something powerful.

And that's the point. That's how we will make change in 2008...by coming together and getting organized. We could have given in and folded up the towel in November of 2004...we did not. In 2008, it won't be easy. We have a long summer and fall ahead of us. But, this time we've made a commitment to each other that it will be different.

We've learned, we've grown and we're ready. We know what's possible. We don't know yet what we will attain. There's more I'm going to tell you about down the road.

Yes.We.Can....VOTE FOR CHANGE.

Bush / McCain, McCain / Bush, Bush McSame

2008-05-19T15:32:00.001-07:00

Brilliant stuff from Josh Marshall and TPM:

Don't miss NC coverage tonight from Pam

2008-05-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

of Pam's House Blend.

Is it just me...

2008-05-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or has the Washington Post online had something, or, uh, two or three or four things, up on their front page about Reverend Wright non-stop for ten days?

Today's WaPo Wright headline courtesy of Dan Balz.

(And Richard Cohen has to get a parting shot in today, as well.)

::

I read the WaPo Front Page twice a day and their obsession with Wright has been over the top.

the Judgment of Howard

2008-05-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

I wrote months ago comparing the current demographic situation in the Democratic Party to the Judgment of Solomon where two women go before the King each claiming to be the true mother of a child and the King suggests cutting the child in half and each mother taking part.

The true mother relents and cedes out of love and maternal passion for her infant, and the King, satisfied he has found the true mother, orders the infant given to her whole.

Of course,we are in just such a situation now, if you'll forgive the literary metaphor. These polls spell that out on some level. The true mother has been apparent since Iowa.

One wise commenter in that thread on dailykos, however, made an interesting point about the actual historical moral of that tale. As well as being about maternal love, the Judgment of Solomon is a story about how Solomon unified Israel by bringing a sword at a crucial moment, forcing a decision about Israel's future and his own leadership.

Who loves the party more? Who is reaching out to bring us together? Which campaign has sacrificed and worked to bring us together, has worked to lay the foundation of the future of our party? Which campaign best represents the future of the Democratic Party?

It took the metaphorical sword of Solomon to move the competing factions within Israel to unify: and, yes, for that to happen, one side had to win and the other had to lose. Israel had to unify under Solomon's leadership to move forward.

That was Solomon's judgment, too.

Moyers: "Beware the Terrible Simplifiers"

2008-05-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

May 2, 2008
BILL MOYERS:Welcome to the Journal.

I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam, "Who's telling the truth over there?" Everyone he said. Everyone sees what's happening through the lens of their own experience." That's how people see Jeremiah Wright. In my conversation with him on this broadcast a week ago and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage. Over 2000 of you have written me about him, and your opinions vary widely. Some sting: "Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American hating radical," one viewer wrote. A "nut case," said another. Others were far more were sympathetic to him.

Many of you have asked for some rational explanation for Wright's transition from reasonable conversation to shocking anger at the National Press Club. A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I'm not a psychologist. Many black preachers I've known - scholarly, smart, and gentle in person -- uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course I've known many white preachers like that, too.

But where I grew up in the south, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else; a safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed. I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great grandfather had been but three -fifths of a person in a constitution that proclaimed, "We the people." Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, and Jesse Helms. Even so, the anger of black preachers I've known and heard about and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic.

That's not how Jeremiah Wright came across in those sound bites or in his defiant performances this week. What white America is hearing in his most inflammatory words is an attack on the America they cherish and that many of their sons have died for in battle — forgetting that black Americans have fought and bled beside them, and that Wright himself has a record of honored service in the Navy. Hardly anyone took the "chickens come home to roost" remark to convey the message that intervention in the political battles of other nations is sure to bring retaliation in some form, which is not to justify the particular savagery of 9/11 but to understand that actions have consequences. My friend Bernard Weisberger, the historian, says, yes, people are understandably seething with indignation over Wright's absurd charge that the united states deliberately brought an HIV epidemic into being. But it is a fact, he says, that within living memory the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a study that deliberately deceived black men with syphilis into believing that they were being treated, while actually letting them die for the sake of a scientific test. Does this excuse Wright's anger? His exaggerations or distortions? You'll have to decide or yourself. At least it helps me to understand the why of them.

But in this multimedia age the pulpit isn't only available on Sunday mornings. There's round the clock media — the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content. So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help — people who for their own reasons set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn't running for president with the man in the pew who was.

Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher, who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of a preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon white house in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy and wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.

Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettles some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. Politics often exposes us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this — this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

h/t westcott dailykos

The Gas Tax Gimmick is not a "Real Solution"

2008-05-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

This is a great comment from a North Carolinian on Jake Tapper's blog (which now let's me post again):

So all of the folks saying they want a short term solution...

What do you do at the end of the summer when the 18 cents a gallon comes back PLUS the regular increased price of gas? You lose more money when the gov't and the oil companies try to make up the difference.

Does anyone remember the "short term" increase in the price of gas following Katrina? Gas jumped 50 cents to a dollar nationwide and hasn't headed south since. Why do we want to give the folks that control gasoline an excuse to crush us come Labor Day?

Besides, why does anyone think the same gov't that has put us in this situation would get this tax break passed by Labor Day, anyway?

I for one am not looking for a Band-aid, I want a real solution. I thought Hillary was the candidate with real solutions.

That's exactly right. Clinton claims she's for real solutions yet she endorses the McCain Gas Tax Gimmick. Here's part of what I wrote:

I don't see anyone responding to this reality: the gas tax pays for 300,000 American jobs that repair things like the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis.

300,000 jobs is a lot of American jobs.

We can only bury our heads in the sand about energy independence for so long.

Why are we at war in Iraq, costing 4,000 lives?

It's a war John McCain and Hillary Clinton voted for. Now they both propose a gas tax gimmick (that won't pass) instead of dealing with fuel efficiency and CAFE standards that will make America less dependent on foreign oil.

That makes us safer and more secure.

We can do great things as Americans if we put our minds to it.

I'm for the guy willing to go to Detroit and demand more fuel efficient cars. That's Barack Obama and that's honesty. It's not easy, but it's needed right now.

Katrina, Minneapolis...that's what gas tax gimmicks and a lack of investment in our infrastructure gets us.

And, yes, that tax goes directly to 300,000 American jobs. 300,000 families able to make their mortgage payments.

I'll gladly pay my $15.75 this summer. It's a good deal all told.