Rep. Clay (Missouri-1) Asks why the Bush Twins haven't enlisted
Tue Mar 28, 2006 at 07:31:10 PM PDT
Rep. William "Lacy" Clay of Missouri's First District (north St. Louis) was one of the few Reps who voted against the Force Authorization Resolution that set us on the course for war in Iraq. On Monday (3/27) Rep. Clay gave a
speech to a College Progressives for Peace group in his district wherein he asked the legitimate question:
Why haven't the Bush twins enlisted?
I used to live in Rep. Clay's district, when I was a student at Washington University. It was his father's seat then, but I would be proud to call him my Representative any day.
Why Values trump Economics (from authors of Death of Environmentalism)
Mon Jan 23, 2006 at 08:08:21 PM PDT
The American Prospect has an incredibly clear-eyed take on the whole values voter / What's the Matter with Kansas debate in
Remapping the Culture Debate - I urge Kossacks to read and digest.
The best thing about this analysis is that it is finally based on a new set of real measurements, not wishful thinking or creative armchair quarterbacking. It's a summary of some of the recent work being done by the duo who brought us the Death of Environmentalism, and shows how the Kaine victory in VA fits in.
Pray for DeLay
Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 02:14:49 PM PDT
This site is an obvious snark, and too late for 4/1, but it's worth a laugh nonetheless:
Scientific American Revises Position on Evolution
Thu Mar 24, 2005 at 10:49:53 AM PDT
For those who may not have seen it, the April issue of Scientific American has a letter from the editors on their new evolution position:
No Seed Saving in Iraq - Neo-Cons Set Corporate Agriculture Agenda
Wed Mar 23, 2005 at 07:09:17 AM PDT
Leave it to the
Kiwis to uncover this litle nugget of corporate imperialism in our Iraq "redestruction" policy:
Order 81, put in place by US official Paul Bremer, refers to seed-saving and patents. It is legally binding unless repealed by a future Iraqi Government... Seed companies can charge royalties for the seeds, and perhaps most importantly, Iraqi farmers are forbidden to save them... NGOs fear that American companies will supply Iraqi farmers with free seeds for a season or two, and then lock them into a system where they will have to pay for new seeds every year.
Irony of ironies? Iraq was the birthplace of wheat farming, and now the farmers there (an oppressed class in any country) are going to be turned into sharecroppers in a market fundamentalist
circle-jerk.
Why does Dennis Hastert support Genetic Discrimination?
Tue Feb 22, 2005 at 11:26:43 AM PDT
According to insider reports, Republican House leadership is refusing to support legislation that bans Genetic Discrimination.
Current law does little to protect citizens. Employers could use genetic information in employment decisions, and insurance companies could deny coverage or establish premium rates based on genetic information you provided in order to receive medical care.
This is outrageous. Why are Republicans dragging their feet on such a fundamental right? If they have legitimate concerns, why not make them public?
Who is paying the House Republicans to stop this bill?
Why does Dennis Hastert support Genetic Discrimination?
Cato paper claims Muslims and Arabs can't have Democracy
Fri Jan 07, 2005 at 11:49:49 AM PDT
I found
this recent paper on the Cato website. I found it shocking not because of the overt points that it makes (that Muslims and Arabs don't have the cultural background to support democracy), but instead because the keystone assumption is that culture and psychology trump institutions.
In arguments with free-market fundamentalists, the point often comes down to a conflict between abstract "Newtonian" economics versus the reality of imperfect human actors. So I found it surprising - and heartening - to see recognition that cultural and psychological dynamics in a society determine whether or not programs succeed or fail.
US Labor Organizer Assassinated in El Salvador - State Department Silent
Fri Dec 03, 2004 at 06:44:12 AM PDT
This is not "news," in that it happened a month ago, but I only found out about it because I happened to be visiting the National Labor Committee's web site. The U.S. news media has been silent on this issue.
On November 5th, Gilberto Soto, an organizer for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), was murdered while visiting his mother in Usulutan, El Salvador.
What I find outrageous is that the State Department has said NOTHING about this (that I can find, anyway). A U.S. citizen has been murdered in broad daylight for political reasons, and our government is silent. Imagine if a missionary in China had been murdered - there would be an outcry for an official response.
Read on for the facts. I would be very interested to hear Markos comment on this, and yield the floor to those more knowledgeable than me. Forgive me also if this has already been raised on DailyKos - I searched the site and came up empty.
Framing suggestion - Good Shepard instead of Nurturant Parent?
Thu Dec 02, 2004 at 12:02:53 PM PDT
Like many other readers of liberal blogs, I have been captivated by Lakoff's formulation of the "Strict Father" paradigm for conservatives. I have found his term for the progressive frame, "nurturant parent" deficient for many reasons.
For one, it's a "big word," which only feeds into the "we're smarter than you" stereotype.
For another, it reeks of PC, which feeds into another stereotype.
Lastly, there's nothing intrinsically appealing about it - it's too sterile and weak.
I guess the labels don't matter as much as the outbound political messages that should be generated by Lakoff's theories, but while we are discussing them, I think we need a better term for us.
I am not a Christian, but the images of Christianity pervade our society, and provide touchstones for debate.
What do others think of positing the differences between reactionaries and progressives as Strict Father vs. Good Shepard?
Thanks for your feedback.
AP Editorializes in the lead paragraph on Hamas assasination
Fri Oct 22, 2004 at 07:44:59 AM PDT
Recent
AP wire story caught my eye as a clear case of "editorializing" in the middle of news coverage. I'm not wading into the debate about whether the attack was a good idea, morally justified, etc. But I am concerned about mainstream media coverage on this issue. Here's what I'm talking about:
Israelis kill Hamas' No. 2 military man
BY IBRAHIM BARZAK
Associated Press
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - An Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at a car traveling in the Gaza Strip late Thursday, killing a senior Hamas commander who was among the government's most-wanted fugitives for years -- the latest in a series of Israeli assassinations that have weakened the extremist group.
As Dragnet would say, "just the facts please." Speculating about whether this attack is weakening the group is just that - speculation. And this speculation is belied by the facts revealed lower down in the article:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Draft
Thu Oct 21, 2004 at 01:12:34 PM PDT
Thank you, Matt Stoller, for making it so clear why the
Draft will be AWESOME!
From our friends at ENJOYtheDRAFT.com:
The draft is coming and I'm totally psyched!
Still, some of my friends are hassling me, spamming me with all sorts of scary stuff telling me how Bush is going to bring back the draft, so I should vote for Kerry. And I'm like, hello, I should vote to avoid the draft? Fuck that. The draft is TOTALLY GONNA RULE. So I started this site to make sure that no one takes away MY right to a draft.
But first of all, how do I know the draft is coming back?
...
I want my Puzzurple Hedizzle - fo shizzle!
Vote in this Poll - Which Candidate Expresses Christian Values?
Thu Oct 21, 2004 at 07:44:57 AM PDT
There is a new poll on BeliefNet.com, a site that covers religion and spirituality, and that has an active online community.
The poll's question is:
Which candidate Expresses Christian Values?
There is also a fine essay on this page, written by Rev. James Forbes, who says that John Kerry is a proud exemplar of the Catholic justice tradition of putting the common interest before personal gain.
September 12th, 2001 was a holy day--perhaps the closest the world has ever been to the moral ideal of one human family under God. The spirit of unity that reached across borders, states, and cultures propelled us to the very cusp of a shared humanity.
Millions of Americans returned to the pews after September 11 in search of answers. My congregation struggled prayerfully with the moral challenge our nation then faced, and they helped me draft 10 Prophetic Justice Principles as a guide. First among these is the need to "seek the common good" -- to cultivate the sense of being in this together. Our inability to rally a serious coalition behind the Iraq war demonstrated a moral failure to maintain a sense of shared purpose. Our rush to a tangential war and our willingness to sacrifice common standards of human dignity, even to the point of torture at Abu Ghraib, left the world feeling that this was America's fight. They saw it as a war of "national interest" rather than of shared principles. A with-us-or-with-the-terrorists attitude is more effective when the world believes you share their interests--but our leaders' choice to waste the "global moment" of September 12 cost us that moral credibility.
Bush Speech at Convention - Our Strategy is Seceding
Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 07:57:27 PM PDT
OK, I know this is old old now, but I just wanted to check and see if anyone else who listened to George's speech, heard him utter the line:
"Our strategy is seceding"
PFAW and Salon.com Urge You to: Flash the Court
Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 01:35:47 PM PDT
[copied from recent email alert]
Are you a progressive who dabbles in Flash animation - or know someone who does? Here is an opportunity to join the ranks of JibJab and Mark Fiore in a contest brought to you by People For the American Way and Salon.com.
People For the American Way and Salon.com present:
Flash the Court
http://www.pfaw.org/go/flashthecourt
Garrison Keillor gets it Right
Fri Aug 27, 2004 at 11:15:33 AM PDT
Couldn't resist cross posting this piece from radio host and writer
Garrison Keillor:
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element...
The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb and dangerous...
The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them...
Read the full piece at In These Times - there is some great writing here, and funny too.
Next Step in SBVT - Address the 'war crimes' issue?
Mon Aug 23, 2004 at 08:43:09 AM PDT
After researching this issue last week, it was clear to me (as it has become from their new ad) that the real motivation for many of the veterans who oppose Kerry is about the "war crimes" testimony.
I think it's time to address that issue with the truth, that frames Kerry as a principled leader with the moral courage to know when policies have to be changed.
If you look at the transcript of the Dick Cavett show with JFK and John O'Neill from 1971, you'll see that the whole point of Kerry raising the issue of war crimes was that the POLICY LEADERS WERE PUTTING SOLDIERS IN JEOPARDY, and that the policies had to be changed.
Policies like Search and Destroy missions, and Free Fire Zones (where anyone was fair game), were out of line with the Geneva Convention, and Kerry was right to point out that the U.S. was waging a brutal war.
I am not old enough to know whether this type of criticism was the cause of anti-veteran sentiment, or whether there was ever wide-spread anti-veteran sentiment. My instincts tell me that then, as now, there were lots of people who were against the war, and that opposition was interpreted by pro-war Americans as personal criticism of soldiers.
Anyway, the point of this diary is to say that if this is the real, festering issue, then perhaps we should get out ahead of it, and say that Kerry was RIGHT to question the methods of war in Vietnam. History has shown that. Why hide from it?
If you support our troops, then let's not put them in the position of committing war crimes by giving them orders to commit them! Abu Grahib, anyone? ...
State by State Job LOSSES
Fri Jun 18, 2004 at 03:25:37 PM PDT
