Anti-American

After the Elections in Iraq yesterday many Republican commentators used the opportunity to attack the left as un-American and ironically undemocratic. That because we question the war, we wanted the elections to fail and the troops to fail.

This is my organization:


www.mfso.org

I am here to say as a progressive and a military family that to be for the war is anti-troop. To support the administration is to be anti-patriotic. And while conservatives like to wrap themselves in the flag, I can't think of anything more un-American, then voter suppression, violating women's rights, and wanting to change the constitution to take away rights from citizens.

Supporting the troops means wanting them to come home unharmed. It means not wanting them to see war, to see death, and to be maimed. It means if that is going to happen then it should be as a very last resort, with proper planning, and the very least PROPER ARMOR.

I love my mother and I love all she serves with. While I deplore this war, I want democracy to come to all people especially Iraq now that we are there. But I am sick of the same people who don't think twice about my mothers life, despise the very essence of what it means to be American in the same breath calling true patriots un-American. No one loves this county more than we progressives.

Iraqi Elections

The Media and the Bush Administration is calling the elections in Iraq a success. Which judged against the American Elections is a success:

About half the voters voting, a significant ethnic group is excluded because of voter intimidation (fill Blacks or Sunnis into blank here), the election is already decided by a few elite appointed by other elite (fill in rich millionares or American appointees for rich elite), none of the voters really know who they are voting for or why, just showing up to the polls.

And the media ignores any problems with the system, tells everyone it was great and we all go home.

Sounds like a success to me... I mean they may be even more democratic then ours, all of their votes actually get counted.

The Most Amazing Couple

This is the story of the most amazing and Inspirational Couple

On Election Weekend (its a whole weekend for us politically motivated) I went up to my Congressional District in PA to help anyway I could.

On Election Day I drove older citizens to the poles. So we get this call to the coordination office from this older lady in broken Spanish asking for a lift. Finally we get someone who speaks enough Spanish to tell her to come out of her apartment someone will pick her up.

I get to their brickstone in downtown Bethlehem and they are sitting there her purse in hand just waiting excited to go vote.

She asks, "Votar de Kerry? Votar de Kerry?" After I confirm that I will take her she explains that Portuguese is her first language and her husband can only speak Portuguese, she speaks a little Spanish but cannot read or write it. I speak a little Spanish so you can imagine the fun. She tells me they are both 83 and excited to vote as the last time they voted they got to vote for Clinton, who they love.

So we get to the polls and the You Have the Right To Vote people are standing outside explaining that if we need any help please ask. So we go in and there are two lines, for different percicents voting at the same place, we just pop into one line and the women finally gets to the front and says I want to vote for John Kerry.

The man in charge of the poll is an ass and tries to tell them they can't vote unless they have identification, of course he is just screaming this to them in English. Luckily a poll watcher who speaks Spanish steps in, tries to figure out the situation. Meanwhile this 83 year old woman who can barely stand is not moving saying I want to vote for John Kerry.

It finally gets sorted that she is in the book and he is not, she goes to vote, comes out and asks why can't her husband. So we finally get them to leave saying he cannot vote he is not in the book, maybe in 4 years. THEY WOULD HAVE NONE OF IT. SHE STARTS MAKING A FUSS REFUSING TO LEAVE TILL THEY BOTH VOTE. It grabs the attention of the you have the right to vote people.

An Hour passes by as I wait outside for them to finish and they finally come out. The You Have the Right to Vote lady says they are amazing. She explains that this 83 year old portaguse woman with only her and her husbands passports (she was so proud to be an American) would not leave until he voted, and made such a fuss that they checked the books and found out they were mistaken and had him in the wrong books. So they explained to her in broken Spanish how to sign an affidavit, and with her help (cause he can read no English or Spanish) he got to vote as well.

THIS 83 YEAR OLD COUPLE, BARELY ABLE TO STAND, WOULD NOT LEAVE FOR AN HOUR, AN HOUR UNTIL THEY BOTH GOT THE RIGHT TO VOTE. "Democracia, DEMOCRACIA." Is all she would say over and over when they tried to escort her out of the polls without her husband voting.

I took that picture, but what you can't see is the other poll watchers, the kids going to class, and myself all who saw this whole thing go down, misty eyed, crying, because we just saw this amazing dedication. What better represents what it means to be an American, than this couple. If they can keep fighting then dammit so can I, so can we all. I dedicate this year of the blog to them. My inspirations.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME

(ONE YEAR AGO I STARTED THIS BLOG)

When I first thought about this post, and what I learned in 2004, the first thought is loss of faith. Faith in government, its players and the people who are supposed to know about it.

I think of the cynicism and pragmatism that has unfortunately shaped our recent past, Bob Dylan finally joining corporate America (2004 the year the voice of a generation became the voice of a corporation), Democratic Party finally losing any semblance of purpose, the almost complete corporate take over of all of our cherished institutions from information distribution to religion. Everything is for sale and we will buy it all.

But then I remember this couple:



(EXPLAIN THEIR STORY IN NEXT POST)

And I think that the greatest threat to the rising corporatism and plutocracy is the dreamers. I myself have never been a dreamer, always a pragmatist, I just always played by the rules, even those that govern my dreams. But I don’t want to stop believing that it can get better, that if we keep working it will get better.

When I was young my father always said that republicanism was the triumph of cynicism. Cynicism of people and America. It is the truest thing I have ever heard about politics and it will always stick with me.

The strangest thing about citizens of this so called free nation is the feeling of helplessness many of the non-voters feel. These institutions were created by fellow humans and made to represent us. They will never be representative unless we educate ourselves and make them.

AND SO I REDEDICATE THIS SITE, I PROMISE TO TRY TO POST EVERYDAY

AND NOT JUST POLITICAL REITERATION, BUT POETRY, STORIES, CULTURE, ALWAYS TRYING TO GIVE SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

(Part I) Failure of our Media - Why Did A Republican Get It?

This is the First in a series of entry's about the failure of our media. And why they are harming our democracy.

Today in the Washington Times is an editorial about the Media's role in destroying the Dean Democratic Nomination. Why does it take a Republican to get it?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20050123-100614-1880r.htm

As a Republican, I would like to endorse former Gov. Howard Dean as the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

My endorsement has nothing to do with politics or the qualifications of Mr. Dean. Rather, it has to do with an out-of-control media that not only manipulated our electoral process, but, in fact, changed the makeup of the last presidential campaign.

While all political eyes have recently and rightfully focused on CBS News and its blatantly biased reporting against George W. Bush, the media itself has been running from a potentially more damaging story to its reputation — a story that clearly shows that, instead of covering the Democratic primaries last year, the media altered their very outcome, and in the process, made John Kerry the Democratic nominee.

How? By systematically destroying the Dean campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire. How the press did in Mr. Dean is not the least bit complicated. Why and by what means is something it refuses to talk about.

There was basically a three-pronged attack to the media destruction of the Deancampaign.First, thereweregeneric"Howard Dean is dropping and John Kerry is rising in the Iowa polls" stories. These became popular in December 2003, when Mr. Dean was up nearly 30 percent and Mr. Kerry was, by all accounts, "dead in the water."

Each story then createdaself-fulfilling prophecy. Next, and most damaging, was the salvo fired by NBC News on Jan. 8, 2004, just 11 days before the Iowa Caucus. It was on that night that NBC aired the "unearthed" clips of Mr. Dean from a Canadian news show titled "The Editors." From 1996 until 2002, Mr. Dean had made some 90 appearances on a program that also aired regularly on PBS stations here in the United States.

Just by coincidence, of course, NBC happened to show a clip of Mr. Dean criticizing the Iowa caucuses four years earlier. In part, Mr. Dean said, "If you look at the caucuses system, they are dominated by the special interests in both parties." Not shocking, but NBC knew full well that by airing that particular comment just days before the Iowa Caucus, they were going to affect the race. And affect it they did. To be expected, Mr. Kerry, Richard Gephardt and John Edwards all went after Mr. Dean hammer-and-tong for his "insult" to the good voters of Iowa. Next, the talking heads in the Iowa media played "whack-a-mole" with Mr. Dean. So much so that just a few days later, the 11-point lead Mr. Dean had enjoyed over Mr. Kerry had become a one-point Kerry lead.

The third prong in the media onslaught against Mr. Dean was the most memorable, and, by far, the most destructive. It was the tape of Mr. Dean's understandably dazed "I have a scream" speech on Iowa caucus night. With the critical New Hampshire primary just one week away — in a state that in late 2003, neighboring Sen. Kerry had been only polling in the single digits — the national and local media decided to finish off Mr. Dean's campaign. They did so by playing Mr. Dean's "I have a scream" remarks more than 600 times during that one-week span in New Hampshire. Mr. Dean was done, and the voters of New Hampshire settled on the recently exhumed Mr. Kerry.

Don't believe me? How about Diane Sawyer, CNN and FOX News? After the saturation of the "I have a scream" speech, Miss Sawyer reported that she called the heads of the other networks for on-the-record quotes responding to the question if the networks had overplayed the Dean gaffe. She then reported back, "With the exception of NBC (which started the destruction), they all said collectively the media did overplay it. CNN said 'If we had to do it again, we'd pull ourselves back.' And the chairman of Fox News? 'We overplayed it a bit and the public clearly thought so, too."

The media, not the voters, chose the winner of the 2004 Democratic primaries. Not only was this action unprofessional and completely unethical, but it had a direct impact on the general election.

Sadly, while the media is quick to go after others for mistakes, it erects a wall of "No Comment" when it comes to its ethical lapses. As Dan Rather and CBS News President Andrew Heyward conveniently disappeared during their public flogging, so too do most media people when asked about the robbing of Mr. Dean.

Hence my support of Mr. Dean for head of the DNC. Since the media stole his nomination, the least his party can do is throw him a bone and give him the chairmanship.Whoknows, maybe then at least he will make an issue out of this journalistic disgrace.

Douglas MacKinnon served as press secretary to former Sen. Bob Dole. He is also a former White House and Pentagon official.

White People

EXACTLY

Madiba We Pray For You

Yesterday Nelson Mandela announced his son died of AIDS. A taboo in South African Society. Yet in the selflessness that has defined his life, he is turning this tragedy into a refocus on AIDS in S.A. A problem sorrowfully undertreated by the S.A. Government.

"Mandela's announcement that his son died from HIV and Aids made headlines across the country on Friday as the grieving former president urged people to speak openly about a disease infecting about five million South Africans. But in the newspapers' obituary pages - packed with death notices for people in their 30s and 40s - Aids is never mentioned.

Mandela's son, Makgatho, who died on Thursday at the age of 54, becomes one of a handful of prominent South Africans whose deaths have been publicly attributed to HIV and Aids.

Aids has been associated with bad behavior... [AIDS is not] an illness reserved for people who are going to go to hell and not to heaven.'"

What is amazing to me, is what it says that even Mandela's Son who should know better about testing and protection, can still contract and die from AIDS. It is very emblematic of enormous problem facing the country.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13

Show Our Humanity and Give

Rabbi Lerner
"Where was God During the Tsunami?", my first response was to say, as I've said about God during the Holocaust, "Isn't this an attempt to avoid the more pressing question of "Where was humanity? Why have we been so unwilling to take serious responsibility for the well- being of others on the planet?"

Show our Humanity



List or Organizations Giving Help
http://www.networkforgood.org/topics/international/earthquake/tsunami122604.aspx?source=YAHOO&cmpgn=HMPCRS