Free Press mourns the tragic passing of courageous U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones
Bob Fitrakis, with the Ecological Options Network crew, interviewed Rep. Tubbs-Jones after the 2004 election debacle and subsequent 2005 challenge to the Ohio electoral votes. Watch it here:
Progressives and Obama: the clash of narratives
By now, across the progressive spectrum, some familiar storylines tell us
the meaning of the Obama campaign. In a groove, each narrative digs its
truths. But whether those particular truths are the most important at this
historical moment is another story.
We can set aside the plotline that touts Obama as a visionary pragmatist who has earned the complete trust of progressives. The belief has diminished in recent months -- in the wake of numerous Obama pronouncements on foreign policy, his FISA vote to damage the Fourth Amendment and the like -- but such belief was never really grounded in his record as a politician or his policy positions.
A more substantial narrative concedes that Obama has "compromised" on numerous fronts but assumes he has done so in order to get elected president, after which time his real self will emerge. This kind of dubious projection is as old as the political hills, and inevitably becomes a kind of murky exercise in armchair psychology. All in all, projection is not useful for assessing where political leaders are and where they’re headed.
We can set aside the plotline that touts Obama as a visionary pragmatist who has earned the complete trust of progressives. The belief has diminished in recent months -- in the wake of numerous Obama pronouncements on foreign policy, his FISA vote to damage the Fourth Amendment and the like -- but such belief was never really grounded in his record as a politician or his policy positions.
A more substantial narrative concedes that Obama has "compromised" on numerous fronts but assumes he has done so in order to get elected president, after which time his real self will emerge. This kind of dubious projection is as old as the political hills, and inevitably becomes a kind of murky exercise in armchair psychology. All in all, projection is not useful for assessing where political leaders are and where they’re headed.
Civilian diplomacy
Peace is no more — and no less — than the audacity of sanity, reaching past the dubious geopolitics of national self-interest and standing, as Hank Brusselback did, underneath the ancient bridge in Esfahan, Iran, listening to the men who had gathered to sing.
It's called civilian diplomacy, and it is one way we will create the peace our leaders don't believe we're ready for.
It's called civilian diplomacy, and it is one way we will create the peace our leaders don't believe we're ready for.
The DNC platform: belief you can change in
Here it is: Fifty Pages of Fluff. Jonathan Tasini, among others, has posted a draft of the AT&T Democratic Convention Party Platform: Here's a PDF. It's not all fluff, but it's packaged that way, and you have to plow through 8 pages of stomach-turning platitudinous cowardice before getting to anything worthwhile. There is, in the end, a good deal of worthwhile stuff in here, and a good deal of head fakes in the right direction with no substantive detail.
When Nancy Pelosi recently remarked that she was avoiding impeachment in order to be bipartisan, she wasn't kidding. And this is introduced as a bipartisan platform. It opens by, admirably, noting that we face crises of war, economic collapse, and environmental disaster. What to do? "Abandon the politics of partisan division." Yep, that oughta about fix things. The next sentence even throws in the word "accountability" with no shame whatsoever. The platform makes no mention of the governmental crimes of the past 7.5 years, no promises to punish the perpetrators, and no suggestion of ways to deter their repetition. Just vague desires to do better.
When Nancy Pelosi recently remarked that she was avoiding impeachment in order to be bipartisan, she wasn't kidding. And this is introduced as a bipartisan platform. It opens by, admirably, noting that we face crises of war, economic collapse, and environmental disaster. What to do? "Abandon the politics of partisan division." Yep, that oughta about fix things. The next sentence even throws in the word "accountability" with no shame whatsoever. The platform makes no mention of the governmental crimes of the past 7.5 years, no promises to punish the perpetrators, and no suggestion of ways to deter their repetition. Just vague desires to do better.
Pelosi claims Republicans want impeachment
Almost every time House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explains why she won't impeach Bush or Cheney she says that the Republicans want impeachment and that therefore she must oppose it.
She originally took impeachment "off the table" in response to a May 2006 Republican National Committee announcement that (contrary to all existing evidence) talk of impeachment would benefit Republicans in the November 2006 elections. (In fact polls showed a majority believing that electing Democrats would mean impeachment, and we elected 30 new Democrats and not a single new Republican.)
Pelosi made the same claim in this week's Time Magazine:
"I think the Republicans would like nothing better than for us to focus on impeachment and take our eye off the ball of a progressive economic agenda."
She also made the same claim in this week's Nation Magazine:
"You know who wanted us to impeach the President...it was the Republicans." Over and over again she argues that the Republicans want impeachment.
She originally took impeachment "off the table" in response to a May 2006 Republican National Committee announcement that (contrary to all existing evidence) talk of impeachment would benefit Republicans in the November 2006 elections. (In fact polls showed a majority believing that electing Democrats would mean impeachment, and we elected 30 new Democrats and not a single new Republican.)
Pelosi made the same claim in this week's Time Magazine:
"I think the Republicans would like nothing better than for us to focus on impeachment and take our eye off the ball of a progressive economic agenda."
She also made the same claim in this week's Nation Magazine:
"You know who wanted us to impeach the President...it was the Republicans." Over and over again she argues that the Republicans want impeachment.
President's job is to pardon
In the evolving neocon scheme of unconstitutional US governance, the job of running the country may belong to the office of the Vice President, while the primary duty of the president (other than following orders and acting like he's in charge) may be to pardon the Vice President and all of his henchmen for their crimes.
We have survived (just barely) seven and a half years of life under a government that has eliminated the legislative and judicial branches, installed a certified moron in the oval office, and placed dictatorial power in a new fourth (or first) branch of government located wherever Dick Cheney casts his shadow. The Republican candidate to succeed George W. Bush is a bumbling idiot and senile to boot, clearly incapable of remembering what he had for breakfast, much less running a global empire. (And he lost any right to take pride in his torture victimhood when he began supporting the torture of others.) If he chooses a new Dick Cheney as his running mate, we will know that his role is puppet-in-chief and primary pardoner.
We have survived (just barely) seven and a half years of life under a government that has eliminated the legislative and judicial branches, installed a certified moron in the oval office, and placed dictatorial power in a new fourth (or first) branch of government located wherever Dick Cheney casts his shadow. The Republican candidate to succeed George W. Bush is a bumbling idiot and senile to boot, clearly incapable of remembering what he had for breakfast, much less running a global empire. (And he lost any right to take pride in his torture victimhood when he began supporting the torture of others.) If he chooses a new Dick Cheney as his running mate, we will know that his role is puppet-in-chief and primary pardoner.
Prosecuting Bush and Cheney
Last week two judges encouraged me to look to courts to help us recover from the damage done by an outlaw executive and a spineless corrupt legislature. The first was Bush-appointed federal Judge John Bates who ruled that people must comply with Congressional subpoenas even if they used to work for the president, and this because - you know - the law requires it. The second was Judge William Price in Iowa who was hearing the case of citizens arrested for trying to make a citizens' arrest of Karl Rove. When told what they had been trying to do, the judge said "Well, it's about time!"
Sort of makes you want to go out and arrest a war criminal or two, doesn't it? Here's how: http://afterdowningstreet.org/citizenarrest
Next month, on September 13th and 14th in Andover, Massachusetts, a major conference will be held to discuss the possibilities for prosecuting high-level American war criminals, including Bush and Cheney. The agenda and information on how to attend can be found at http://war-crimes.info
Sort of makes you want to go out and arrest a war criminal or two, doesn't it? Here's how: http://afterdowningstreet.org/citizenarrest
Next month, on September 13th and 14th in Andover, Massachusetts, a major conference will be held to discuss the possibilities for prosecuting high-level American war criminals, including Bush and Cheney. The agenda and information on how to attend can be found at http://war-crimes.info
The REAL 1960s terrorists were named Westmoreland, Johnson & Nixon
Hate-mongering against alleged “leftist 1960s terrorists” now fills the days of anti-Obama rage for the Rovian bloviator battalion.
Bill Ayers and the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, Baby Boom professors, social workers , etc, are front and center for the hateful blatherings of the usual GOP flunkies all cowering at the prospect of an African-American president.
But there were, indeed, three 1960s terrorists whose murderous, planet-killing rampage continues to poison this nation. They tower above all others. Their names: William Westmoreland, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon.
This unholy trinity killed outright more than 55,000 Americans and several million southeast Asians---most of them innocent civilians---while bombing, strafing and spewing horrific toxic chemicals onto countless of square miles of previously pristine jungle. Their Agent Orange caused tens of thousands of deaths and deformities that still carry through the generations.
No single terror act in the history of the United States even remotely compares to the lethal psychosis that created and was then furthered by the Vietnam War.
Bill Ayers and the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement, Baby Boom professors, social workers , etc, are front and center for the hateful blatherings of the usual GOP flunkies all cowering at the prospect of an African-American president.
But there were, indeed, three 1960s terrorists whose murderous, planet-killing rampage continues to poison this nation. They tower above all others. Their names: William Westmoreland, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon.
This unholy trinity killed outright more than 55,000 Americans and several million southeast Asians---most of them innocent civilians---while bombing, strafing and spewing horrific toxic chemicals onto countless of square miles of previously pristine jungle. Their Agent Orange caused tens of thousands of deaths and deformities that still carry through the generations.
No single terror act in the history of the United States even remotely compares to the lethal psychosis that created and was then furthered by the Vietnam War.
Democratic platform option: "Guaranteed Health Care for All"
"Health care." In media and politics, the phrase has become a cliche
that easily slides into rhetoric and wonkery. The tweaking Washington debate
runs parallel to the bottom line of corporate health care. While government
officials talk, the principle of health care as a human right goes begging.
Routinely, two contexts -- the macro and the personal -- obscure each other. Numbers may represent people, but people are anything but numbers. Paper, computer screens, claim forms and spreadsheets keep flattening humanity into commodity. But, of course, no one you love can ever be understood as a statistic.
What’s in place is a profit-driven system of health care with devastating effects on human beings. Even the most illuminating stats tend to become glib, abstracting calibration of damage to lives in the United States, where at any moment 47 million people are uninsured and another 50 million are badly under-insured.
Routinely, two contexts -- the macro and the personal -- obscure each other. Numbers may represent people, but people are anything but numbers. Paper, computer screens, claim forms and spreadsheets keep flattening humanity into commodity. But, of course, no one you love can ever be understood as a statistic.
What’s in place is a profit-driven system of health care with devastating effects on human beings. Even the most illuminating stats tend to become glib, abstracting calibration of damage to lives in the United States, where at any moment 47 million people are uninsured and another 50 million are badly under-insured.
The U.S. Department of Media
Last Friday one of two things indisputably happened. Either a dozen senior Congress members and several well-known expert witnesses went certifiably and collectively insane, or charges of the most extreme executive abuses of power ever heard in the history of this nation were backed up by overwhelming evidence during a six-hour hearing of the House Judiciary Committee focused on the possible need to impeach the President and the Vice President. Either way, a nation with a public communications system worthy of a democracy would have learned the news.