k / o

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.

Jake Tapper and ABC News: "bloggers"

2008-04-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

Jake Tapper has a blog at ABC News, Political Punch, and the comment policy there is bizarre.

They delete almost any comment I've ever made but leave up the most bone-headed, right-wing trollish posts ever.

Now, I'm not known for making comments worthy of deleting (I'm not offensive, insulting, or rude...and try to make substantive, thought-provoking points), but Mr. Tapper's staff seem to have a fondness of deleting almost everything I post! It's reached a point where readers respond to my comments, but the comment itself has been removed.

How many other comments is Political Punch deleting, and, if the policy is to delete comments of some users why do they leave up so much offensive dreck?

The comment deleting policy at Political Punch is something to keep in mind next time you read the cesspool that is the comment section there. ABC isn't just okay with that state of the comments on Political Punch, but has worked to make it that way.

Hillary Clinton: politics as usual

2008-04-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

From MSNBC today Clinton claims victories in Michigan and Florida, states where Obama did not campaign (he wasn't even on the ballot in MI), in violation of her own Pledge and previous commitments.

Further, Clinton plays politics with her negative campaigning. 68% of Pennsylvanians said she ran a negative campaign. The New York Times editorial board roundly denounced her negative campaigning and assigned responsibility for the negative tone of the 2008 race to her.

It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race.

This is the kind of politician her campaign is claiming should be our next president?

Clinton = politics as usual. 68% of Pennsylvanians agree.

Bill Clinton: "They played the race card on me"

2008-04-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

This WHYY interview is revealing of Bill Clinton's bitterness about the reaction to his Jackson comment after the South Carolina primary:

“I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign that they planned to do it along.” - President Bill Clinton.

And that’s how President Clinton begins his answer to WHYY’s Susan Phillips who, during a phone interview earlier this evening, asked the President how he feels about one Philadelphia official who says she switched her support after interpreting Clinton’s remarks in South Carolina as an attempt to marginalize Obama as “the black candidate.”

Clinton goes on to say that “you have to really go some to play the race card on me.” He lists a number of his accomplishments on behalf of people of color, inexplicably putting the fact that he has “an office in Harlem” at the top of the list.

Am I feeding resentment by playing this radio clip? I don't think so. I think it should be heard and discussed. Bill Clinton's accusations about playing the race card are a serious matter.

Listen to President Clinton in this clip and especially listen to the undertone of what he's saying.

I'll spell it out from my point of view. Bill Clinton is clearly saying that African-American voters "owe him" on some level whether that's on the level of respect or voting for his wife. He also feels angry enough to hurl some pretty divisive accusations inside the Democratic party. Personally, however, I find it shocking that Bill and Hillary Clinton, a couple who are essentially asking all of us Americans to return them to the White House, would talk like this.

It's destructive. It's bitter. It's assuming the worst of others. And it's not fitting for an ex-President in my opinion.

Should people respect Bill Clinton? Of course. But not when he talks like this. Not when he makes accusations like this. That is a kind of politics of destruction.

That is not "chilling out" and it makes talk of a "Dream Ticket" sound pretty naive at this point.

Ed Rendell failing to win the youth vote

2008-04-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

In general, insulting the people you are trying to persuade is a bad idea.

Rendell: But what I find amazing, particularly because our students are brighter than ever and it doesn't matter whether it's Penn or Lasalle or whatever, the students go and drink the Kool-Aid of a wonderful speech...

For what it's worth, "drinking the Kool Aid" is either a reference to the mass suicide of Jonestown or the drug-taking of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.

Either way, it has nothing to do with where millenial voters (voters born after 1975) are at today. As someone who has met, literally, thousands of Obama supporters, I can also say that "drinking the Kool Aid" is an epithet so far off the mark that it's not even an insult.

Anyone who would use the phrase has already proven that they have no idea what they are talking about. Obama's supporters are dedicated, sincere, informed and for the most part, pretty damn pragmatic. Major misstep for Clinton and Rendell with the youth vote.

Btw, this HuffPost commenter highlights the deception in Rendell's reference to Clinton's "action" for young people. Obama co-sponsered the very same bill:

Have to question Rendell's comment at the end of this video that HRC introduced and passed a student loan bill. I just did a search on thomas.gov and could find no such bill. The only thing I could find is a bill (S.1642) introduced by Senator Kennedy. Hillary was a co-sponsor, along with more than a dozen other senators...including Obama. Can anyone find something I missed?

Like I said, dedicated, sincere and informed...

McWhorter and Loury

2008-04-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

John McWhorter and Glenn Loury have been, far and away, the most worthwhile duo to watch on Bloggingheads.tv, period. Their most recent episode, "Michelle Obama Ain't a bargainer" is golden.

I'd go further and make a point that dovetails with a key unspoken aspect of the McWhorter and Loury discussion: if the 2008 campaign were, at this point, as many people expected, simply a contest between Hillary Clinton and John McCain, we wouldn't be watching John McWhorter and Glenn Loury have this kind of excellent, insight-filled discussion on Bloggingheads.tv.

I said previously that Barack Obama was the driving force of the 2008 campaign, that without him this campaign would not have the substance and drive it does. In response to Loury's ongoing support of Clinton, I'd like to expand on that.

There's a point in the discussion when Loury responds to what had been a series of celebrations of Barack Obama by McWhorter with a summary of how he views the core rationales for supporting her:

Loury: Several reasons, one is...I think she's more competent. I genuinely do. I understand that that question is arguable. But every time I hear them discuss affairs of state, including in that debate last night, I come away from it with the sense that her grasp is deeper and that her vision is more mature. And, you know, there's gonna be experience. Experience has been made into a bad word. [snip]

How did experience become a bad word? How did a lifetime or decades of experience at the top of American government get equated to having had the foresight or the judgment to stand against the war which I was against from the very start just like Barack Obama. So, I think she's better qualified and I just think again that that showed last night.

They were asked some questions about foreign affairs and so forth and they were also asked some questions about domestic issues and her answers were just more elaborate, richer and more thoughtful in my opinion.

McWhorter:...well, they are.

Loury: The idea that some talking head on MSNBC is going to dismiss all that as wonkery. I'm just too serious a person to be persuaded by that. Wonkery is exactly what I want in the person whose finger is on the button. That's what I want. I want wonkery in the person who's gonna be making the decisions that are going to be affecting life around me. So I think she's better prepared to be president of the United States.

Secondly, I'm gonna just confess here. Some people vote because, well, the guys black, I'm black, let me vote for the guy. That's not me. I vote because the woman's 60, I'm 60, let me vote for the woman.

In other words, what I'm saying is there's a generational connect that I have with Hillary Rodham Clinton. And not only with her. Yes, we are baby boomers. Yes, the 60's were the formative decade for us. Sorry, that's true. Yes, we were quite numerous in that we've had an outsized impact on the culture for decades and I'm sure that Generations X, Y and Z are sick and tired of it. I understand all of that. Nevertheless, we 55 to 65 year olders have journeyed through life to reach the prime and the peak of our capacity. All of it has come to now. And now's our time, you know, is kind of my feeling.[snip]

I really admire her grit. I admire her toughness. You know, the kitchen sink? From my vantage point in this campaign she's endured a great deal. She's kept her chin up. She's soldiered on. She's fought the good fight.

I disagree with Loury here. If Hillary Clinton serves as a kind of stand in for the baby boomer generation, forged in the crucible of the 60's, and whose life experience has now yielded a wisdom that leaves her newly competent to govern with a wise wonkery like Plato's guardians, why did Clinton vote for Bush's misadventure in Iraq? That's not some idle question; it goes right to the heart of the matter.

One of the reasons Clinton appeared appealing the other night was that she gave the most unequivocal answer she has ever given about her position about withdrawal from Iraq. Her answer in the Pennsylvania debate, however, was nowhere near what her position was at the outset of this campaign. (Initially she would not commit to a withdrawal timeline with any teeth at all. It was not clear that Clinton would withdraw from Iraq in her first term in office.) It's also nowhere close to what she said, four long years ago in 2004, when Bill and Hillary's equivocations about the war in Iraq helped reelect George Bush to a second term.

The Clinton position on Iraq belies every argument Loury makes for her. What did Viet Nam teach her generation that Clinton somehow forgot when she cast her vote for the AUMF and against the Levin amendment? Why, in the cauldron of the 2004 election, did Bill Clinton come out in support of the President's policy in Iraq and Hillary adamantly refuse to reconsider her vote for the AUMF? More to the point, how does that now prove that Clinton is "better qualified" to lead in 2009?

It doesn't. Clinton's position on Iraq proves exactly the opposite.

When Loury extols wonkery, he has the wrong candidate. Obama is clearly the candidate poised to bring a refreshing and open-minded approach to policy solutions to our government. What's more, he will do this in full view of the public and not locked away in private; Obama is committed to transparency and sunlight in the decision making of our government. Clinton is not.

Why has Clinton, for all the "elaborate richness" of her answers, simply mischaracterized her history with NAFTA and health care reform outright? When Clinton was elected to the United States Senate she enunciated very clearly what her stance was on root and branch reform in Washington. Incrementalism was the key. Is that wonkery, or is that more Mark Penn fueled, poll-driven policy based on micro trends?

I think we all know the answer.

Without Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain would be locked in a traditional "Red State/Blue State battle." Loury's dream of a kind of rehash of the lessons of the 1960's played out in a battle between a 71 year old and a 60 year old whose lives were utterly shaped by that decade 40 years ago would be at hand.

I don't think that battle or that rehashing would do our nation any good or serve to move us forward.

Without adding fuel to the fire of an inter-generational battle that Loury alludes to, let me say this, if the Clinton campaign wanted to prove that it could do more than run on a Loury-esque "It's our time, we've earned this." platform, Clinton had to reach out to the generations who came after the baby boom and win us over.

There were some very clear ways to do this. One would have been to speak frankly about the error of her vote on the war. The second would have been to engage with voters under 40 in an absolutely new way. (Look at what the Obama campaign has done on and off line.) And, most importantly, Clinton needed to address the reality that for voters under 40, the legacy of the Clinton/Bush years directly impacts our future. The failure to ratify Kyoto, the lack of progress on energy independence, the triumph of big corporations against efforts at sane regulation, the stagnation of wages and the utter failure to make progress on health care reform has meant that 20 and 30somethings now face an adult lifetime without any margin of error dealing with these major issues. Our children face a lifetime of a planet in peril.

The bill for all this was passed to our generation while those older than us profited immensely from an era of cheap oil, SUVs and REITs.

That era is over.

Does that spell competence and wisdom? Does that spell a breadth and depth of experience? I don't think so.

The vote to enter the war in Iraq took place in 2002. We are now electing a president to serve a term that would run between 2009 and 2013. That very same war in Iraq looms large in dollars and lives lost. Nothing has changed in our environmental policy. We have made absolutely zero progress on containing global carbon emissions. We have not even begun to forge the international consensus needed to make the changes needed to address global warming and to address the very real threats to the community of nations posed by nuclear proliferation and international terrorism.

Has Hillary Clinton in the leadership she has shown as Senator given us any reason to think she is ready to undertake that challenge?

Quite frankly, she hasn't. She has not even bothered to take that leadership role. That's the myth of Clinton's competence. Where has she been in the Senate?

Where Loury sees competence and sagacity, I see a candidate who has learned the core lesson of the Bill Clinton years: don't say anything remotely impolitic while fighting a continual rear guard battle with the right wing. That's the old way.

There's a better way. We can make a change. But to achieve that change Barack Obama will need every generation of Democrats united behind him. We cannot afford to be divided. Not with the challenges we face.

One candidate has driven the 2008 campaign. He has raised the money, brought in the new voters, done the mass registration drives, enunciated the policy positions, elaborated the core message of 2008 and campaigned across the entire United States.

If Hillary Clinton wanted to decisively prove her claim to the presidency for the years between 2009 and 2013, she needed to enunciate something more than what she has so far. She played it "safe" when "safe" was actually anything but.

While I respect Glenn Loury and am grateful to have a chance to watch him and John McWhorter discuss the state of the 2008 race, I have to respectfully disagree with the ease with which he yields the entire ground of experience and competence to Clinton.

I do not begin to accept that premise. There's a better way than the Clinton way.

970 agents of change

2008-04-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

I was sitting taking a break from phonebanking for Barack Obama today and had a great conversation with Fred Feller, a recently elected national delegate for Obama from CA-09.

Fred won election to go to Denver here in CA-09 last Sunday at a caucus held at Beebe Memorial Church on Telegraph Avenue about a mile from my house in Oakland.

970 of us showed up to vote in that caucus last Sunday. I was a volunteer working the line...giving out information and making sure things ran smoothly...and so I had the chance to speak with almost every last one of those voters.

Fred won enough votes to be an Obama delegate to Denver. Like the other delegates chosen, he will do Obama proud, and I was really pleased to see him taking his Saturday afternoon to call Pennsylvania with about thirty other volunteers at the campaign offices of Congresswoman Barbara Lee...

::

The line down Telegraph Avenue was long last Sunday.

The activists assembled to participate in the caucus included so many people I know.

Activists who worked to elect Jerry McNerney in 2006, activists who helped elect the millenial candidate Abel Guillen to Peralta School Board, long time supporters of Barbara Lee, and a host of candidates, progressive activists and elected officials well-known here in the East Bay. Professor George Lakoff was there, standing in line with friends like everyone else. Vicki Cosgrove who worked with me on the Chicago Voices program was there, too.

But the overwhelming impression you got last Sunday at Beebe Memorial Church was that here were 970 progressive activists of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicities drawn together by our support for Barack Obama.

That's a powerful thing.

It's not powerful just because it set a record for turnout to a delegate caucus in CA-09, it's powerful because of this fact:

Anytime you bring together like-minded people organized for change within a political map in the United States, you create the opportunity to change the balance of power inside of that map.

There are roughly 650,000 residents of CA-09. This is the same as every other Congressional district in the USA (except the few that represent the very smallest states).

What power do 1,000 Obama supporters have to make change in CA-09?

Huge power, if we choose to use it.

That's how politics works.

The most powerful thing you can do as an American citizen and grassroots activist is to locate, identify and collaborate with like-minded fellow citizens who live within the political maps that define your identity.

For me, that's the City of Oakland, Alameda County, California Congressional District 9, the Oakland Unified School District, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, California Assembly District 16, California State Senate District 9, Oakland City Council District 1, and the Peralta Community College and Bay Area Rapid Transit regional boards.

That sounds complicated. It is, at first, but the more you learn, the more empowered you become.

But what I'm getting at is this. We are most powerful when we connect with like-minded citizens who live within the same political boundaries as us.

In a nutshell, talking to 15 neighbors on a consistent basis about making change in your community, and then taking action to make that change, is the most powerful political thing most people can do.

When 970 people in one Congressional District get together and agree on anything, that is a very big deal.

::

what this means

Folks like Sean Hannity and George Stephanopoulos are agents of the status quo. Their job involves reinforcing the world view of the Corporate Media that defines the political life of our nation.

If we want to make change in this country we have to do two things at once.

First, we have to get together exactly like we do here in the blogosphere on DailyKos or at Netroots Nation. We have to organize with like-minded people nationally in opposition to folks in the media like Sean Hannity and George Stephanopoulos and Ben Smith and Jake Tapper and Chris Cillizza and Ana-Marie Cox, folks who sell and shape the status quo.

That national microphone of the blogosphere is a way we can coordinate and empower fellow netroots activists all over the USA. No matter how often folks belittle and attack the netroots, we should all remember that things were a lot different in American politics before we came on the scene. We are about substance and reform and transparency and change. We are about making progressive policies a reality.

The national corporate media are about reinforcing the status quo. Every time George Stephanopoulos talks about Rev. Wright or Flag Lapel Pins it means we aren't talking about the war in Iraq or how lobbyists killed Health Care Reform or the fact that California now has the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation. (Did you know that? Now you do.)

::

But the other, essential thing we have to do is to get organized locally.

For as important as coordinated national action is, that's not where the real change happens in the United States.

The real power is in folks like the 970 people who took time out on a Sunday afternoon in April to support Barack Obama here in Oakland.

Together we have enormous power. When we organize within our districts and within our maps, that is when we truly begin to overturn the power that folks like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have on our political lives.

The place to change the status quo in the United States is at the local level. If you get 50 like-minded progressive activists together on an email listserv in your community, I absolutely guarantee you that your local elected officials will take notice.

If you choose to run a reform candidate with the support of those 50 local activists, I guarantee you that, win or lose, you will change politics in your area permanently for the better.

That's how American politics works.

If you want to make progressive change in the United States you've got to get organized and you've got to get local.

::

Fallon vs. Boswell

Take a look at this animated graphic making a progressive challenge against conservative Iowa Democrat, Leonard Boswell.

This is the kind of progressive challenge that gave us Congresswoman Donna Edwards.

We are powerful when we work locally for progressive change.

Will progressive Ed Fallon win his Iowa primary? We'll see. But his campaign has already made a huge difference.

That's what progressives can do when we work together. That is how we build a Progressive Majority.

::

don't believe the hype: get organized

Last Sunday I saw 970 activists who rallied because we support a candidate for President who moves us to get off our asses and work for change.

I also saw something else. I saw a powerful group of people ready to make a difference in California Congressional District 9.

What we need to do is to stick together.

Not two blocks from where we met on Telegraph Avenue to elect national delegates for Obama is one of the most tragically violent blocks in North Oakland. A five-year old child recently died as a result of an illegal handgun kept in a home. A postal worker died in an attempted car jacking on that same block three years ago and three young men were sentenced to life in prison without parole for that heinous and senseless crime.

We have so much work to do together. It is so easy to see Sean Hannity and George Stephanopolous on TV cynically talking about "gun issues" or red-baiting our candidates and think that there is no hope for progressive change in this country.

That is exactly what they want you to think. Don't believe the hype.

Get active. Get local. Get organized and stay organized. We've got work to do in the USA. Barack Obama is providing us with some inspiration and energy. It's up to us what we do with that.

The answer isn't out there. It's the person you see in the mirror every morning.

You aren't alone. I learned that last Sunday. Here in Oakland, there's 970 of me. And we're not going to let Sean Hannity run this country. Not by a long shot.

::

EVENTS
MAKE CALLS
TAKE ACTION

David Brooks on the ABC/Disney debate debacle

2008-04-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

David Brooks, "No Whining About the Media," thinks that criticizing ABC's conduct in last night's debate debacle on ABC is "whining."

I disagree and cast my lot with this comment maker:

Anyone who was paying attention when Stephanopoulos asked Obama “Does Rev. Wright love America as much as you?” would not be praising ABC for its journalistic integrity. The country has gone through almost 8 years of that sort of jingoist rhetoric and it is the very jingoism that many in the press have fought against.

Asking questions crafted so as to make it impossible for a candidate to give an satisfactory response (”Oh you don’t love America more than Rev. Wright?!” vs. “So you’re saying that Rev. Wright doesn’t love America?…”) is not good journalism. It is repugnant to the idea of having a reasoned debate over the vital issues facing our country and it is thoroughly republican (and I use “republican” pejoratively).

— Posted by Alex

Ultimately, that debate was a disgrace to America. Questions about flag lapel pins? Charlie Gibson echoing GOP talking points with every policy question?

To the millions of Americans who've participated in this historic Democratic nomination campaign, giving money and time and going to the polls in record numbers, this debate was the ultimate disservice.

To Americans facing foreclosure, to our troops in Iraq, to those wounded veterans who've returned to inadequate treatment at Walter Reed, to the citizens of New Orleans, and to those who care about how our Constitution was circumvented to allow for the torture of prisoners last night's ABC was an abject failure.

After watching Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos snidely attack Barack Obama...and Hillary Clinton relentlessly and cynically pile on...it's hard not to think this biggest loser in the extended primary is the culture of our democracy itself.

As a side note, it's pretty clear the folks at Disney have no interest in Democrats going to their theme parks. If ABC News, a division of Disney, is not a paid wing of the Republican Party, it certainly acts like one.

Disney, clearly, could give two hoots about Democrats. Maybe they will care a bit more when folks stop giving them their business.

little lost pundits

2008-04-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

Reading this utterly idiotic non-story from Chris Cillizza which echoes this tripe from Ben Smith which is somewhat reflected in this bank shot post from the Plank...a pattern forms.

You realize that the pundit class doesn't have a grasp of the dynamics of this campaign. Not in the least.

The challenge that Barack Obama poses to Clinton and the GOP is precisely that he has run his campaign as its lone focus and spokesperson.

Clinton is not the lone focus of her campaign.
McCain is not the lone focus of his campaign.

Their campaigns are the weaker for it.

If 2008 were to devolve into a battle between Clinton and McCain....well, as a nation, we would lose the thread what with Bill and Penn and Wolfson and Rove and W and Ickes getting their digs in.

Barack Obama is out there day in and day out answering all the questions and setting the tone of his campaign and this election cycle, for better and for worse. It is a deliberate campaign strategy. He is the driving force of this campaign cycle. Barack Obama is 2008. The news stories, even the critical, sniping ones, are about him. He is getting better as a candidate before our eyes. He is mapping where we, as a nation, will go if we elect him president.

You can't say the same for Chris Cillizza. He does not get it.

And it shows.

Sunday Morning at the California Democratic Party Convention

2008-03-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

It's 8:30 and the temperature outside the convention hall is starting to heat up (metaphor alert, it's actually chilly) in anticipation of the final morning of the convention. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris will speak for Senator Barack Obama. President Bill Clinton will speak on behalf of his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton. There's also the final chapter in the Leno/Migden endorsement saga which, I am assuming, was pushed to the convention at large with the gathering of some 600 petition signatures by Leno supporters last night.

The graphics in the main hall are branded with the theme of Democrats "Making History" and featuring somewhat blurred photographs of Democratic icons like Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Harvey Milk, Robert F. Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm and Thomas Jefferson interspersed with photographs of Senators Clinton and Obama. This can create some interesting juxtapositions of speakers and background graphics.

Yesterday featured speeches by notables Jerry Brown, John Garamendi, Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown. Willie Brown's speech was notable for its call to party unity and following the rules. It was well received by many in the hall.

Today's final session will pack some drama...and (some likely idle) speculation of last minute special guest...????