VFP lights the way
Minneapolis – With the Republican Convention following hard on their annual meeting in this city, Veterans For Peace adopted two resolutions last week effectively firing signal flares into the path of whoever wins this November’s election, regardless of party.
The first was a resolution on Afghanistan, submitted by VFP president, Elliott Adams, which is likely to become a guidepost for a peace movement now almost exclusively concentrating on Iraq.
Some 400 members and supporters from every part of the country unanimously endorsed a statement recognizing that when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan “…the only threats to our nation existing there were non-indigenous groups whom we ourselves had fostered and fed,” and that “our wanton use of force and violence against the people of Afghanistan has inflamed world opinion against the United States and has diminished our nation’s ability to work toward world peace and our own security by non-violent means.”
The first was a resolution on Afghanistan, submitted by VFP president, Elliott Adams, which is likely to become a guidepost for a peace movement now almost exclusively concentrating on Iraq.
Some 400 members and supporters from every part of the country unanimously endorsed a statement recognizing that when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan “…the only threats to our nation existing there were non-indigenous groups whom we ourselves had fostered and fed,” and that “our wanton use of force and violence against the people of Afghanistan has inflamed world opinion against the United States and has diminished our nation’s ability to work toward world peace and our own security by non-violent means.”
Logical consequences
Call it creative self-destruction, maybe.
How surreal it’s been this week to watch the Republicans reap a small portion of the divine comeuppance due them, first from a hurricane, then from a pregnant teen-ager. Surely more of the same is on its way, but no one wins, because what is lying in a shambles around the McCain campaign is a harvest of suffering.
The bad ideas of the Republican right, or rather the consequences of those ideas — from pre-emptive war to abstinence-only sex education to the merger of church and state to let’s-drown-government-in-the-bathtub — started taking over the Republican National Convention, bursting the levees of managed news and disciplined hypocrisy. Suddenly eight years of extreme cynicism began generating (it’s a miracle) . . . bad press.
How surreal it’s been this week to watch the Republicans reap a small portion of the divine comeuppance due them, first from a hurricane, then from a pregnant teen-ager. Surely more of the same is on its way, but no one wins, because what is lying in a shambles around the McCain campaign is a harvest of suffering.
The bad ideas of the Republican right, or rather the consequences of those ideas — from pre-emptive war to abstinence-only sex education to the merger of church and state to let’s-drown-government-in-the-bathtub — started taking over the Republican National Convention, bursting the levees of managed news and disciplined hypocrisy. Suddenly eight years of extreme cynicism began generating (it’s a miracle) . . . bad press.
Rovian politics chose Sarah Palin
What does it say about John McCain that he picked not only the least experienced Vice Presidential nominee in America’s history, but someone he really doesn’t know? Departing so far from any normal concept of appropriate background, he should at least have had a sense of why this individual is so special. Meeting Palin once at a Republican governors’ conference and having a single phone conversation on the eve of her selection just doesn’t pass muster—particularly for the oldest presidential candidate ever, who’s had four malignant melanomas.
What makes Palin such a cynical choice is that McCain doesn’t know her and doesn’t know what drives her. Until she was selected by the Karl Rove types running his campaign (like campaign manager and Rove protégé Steve Schmidt), McCain might not even have recognized her on the street. Instead, she’s a category selection, made for the crassest reasons by the same kinds of political operatives who brought us George W. Bush.
What makes Palin such a cynical choice is that McCain doesn’t know her and doesn’t know what drives her. Until she was selected by the Karl Rove types running his campaign (like campaign manager and Rove protégé Steve Schmidt), McCain might not even have recognized her on the street. Instead, she’s a category selection, made for the crassest reasons by the same kinds of political operatives who brought us George W. Bush.
Bob Fitrakis: Report from the RNC
Election transparency advocates, 9/11 Truth seekers and Ron Paul partisans staged a rally at the Minnesota Statehouse. The crowd of a few hundred was attributed in part to demonstration fatigue and massive arrests during the week. The march to the convention center that housed the Republican gathering still stretched two blocks long. Along the way, there were MPs from the Minnesota National Guard, police officers everywhere – from bike patrols to those in riot gear. The first four young people we passed advocated the “Get it on” agenda with slogans on the back of their shirts saying “evolve.” It turned out they were advertisers for condoms. A few marchers asked the Trojan youth squad why they hadn’t been active earlier and helped VP candidate Palin’s daughter. One marcher suggested that had Trojan been more active, perhaps they could have prevented the conception of Bush, thus making the world a better place to live.
Raiding democracy in St. Paul
Over 300 protesters, bystanders, media, and medics arrested at RNC
Two minors convicted of contempt, sentenced to 30 days in adult jail
St. Paul, MN -- Two days into the Republican National Convention (RNC), more than 300 people have been arrested, including at least 120 people for felonies -- mostly the notoriously vague charge, 'conspiracy to riot.' With no provocation, police have indiscriminately used rubber bullets, concussion grenades, and chemical irritants to disperse crowds and incapacitate protestors. Police appear to be specifically targeting videographers documenting these police abuses. In response, lawyers have filed a federal restraining order against such conduct.
Two minors convicted of contempt, sentenced to 30 days in adult jail
St. Paul, MN -- Two days into the Republican National Convention (RNC), more than 300 people have been arrested, including at least 120 people for felonies -- mostly the notoriously vague charge, 'conspiracy to riot.' With no provocation, police have indiscriminately used rubber bullets, concussion grenades, and chemical irritants to disperse crowds and incapacitate protestors. Police appear to be specifically targeting videographers documenting these police abuses. In response, lawyers have filed a federal restraining order against such conduct.
It's Labor Day for great expectations
American unions are celebrating Labor Day this year with greater
expectations for a resurgence than they’ve had in many years, thanks to
their political allies.
Labor is aiming for a sharp reversal of what has been a steady decline in union membership and influence, and expects to get it with the active support of influential Democrats led by presidential candidate Barack Obama and key members of Congress.
What unions want most from the Democrats is the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which would knock down the barriers that have stunted union growth for most of the past half-century, so that today only about 12 percent of the nation’s workers belong to unions.
Obama and many other Democrats have already lined up behind the proposed law, and unions are mounting major campaigns aimed at turning out more than 13 million union-oriented voters to help elect them and any other Democrats who will join them.
Many employers, aided and abetted by the notoriously anti-labor Bush administration, have been able to make union membership meaningless, if not impossible, by illegally interfering in unionization drives.
Labor is aiming for a sharp reversal of what has been a steady decline in union membership and influence, and expects to get it with the active support of influential Democrats led by presidential candidate Barack Obama and key members of Congress.
What unions want most from the Democrats is the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which would knock down the barriers that have stunted union growth for most of the past half-century, so that today only about 12 percent of the nation’s workers belong to unions.
Obama and many other Democrats have already lined up behind the proposed law, and unions are mounting major campaigns aimed at turning out more than 13 million union-oriented voters to help elect them and any other Democrats who will join them.
Many employers, aided and abetted by the notoriously anti-labor Bush administration, have been able to make union membership meaningless, if not impossible, by illegally interfering in unionization drives.
Predator and prey
Bad bear!
Within the false outrage coursing through much of mainstream politics and the media, there is a grudging reverence for the brutality of the latest world crisis, if evinced only in the satisfaction that America has found its next enemy. Cold War sentiments stir in their hibernation, the McCain campaign has a bete noir to rail at more ferocious than Paris Hilton, and God’s in his heaven once again.
Maybe Russia is the perfect enemy, in that the country is too big and powerful to actually attack directly — not even the most unhinged neocon has so far suggested that — and therefore we can sustain rhetorical hatred and huge defense budgets without fear of a new quagmire.
Oh, what a world it would be if humanity and compassion had a collective presence that wasn’t fleeting, if a crisis of aggression somewhere in the world was followed by cries from politicians and ordinary citizens alike to beef up the peace budget.
Within the false outrage coursing through much of mainstream politics and the media, there is a grudging reverence for the brutality of the latest world crisis, if evinced only in the satisfaction that America has found its next enemy. Cold War sentiments stir in their hibernation, the McCain campaign has a bete noir to rail at more ferocious than Paris Hilton, and God’s in his heaven once again.
Maybe Russia is the perfect enemy, in that the country is too big and powerful to actually attack directly — not even the most unhinged neocon has so far suggested that — and therefore we can sustain rhetorical hatred and huge defense budgets without fear of a new quagmire.
Oh, what a world it would be if humanity and compassion had a collective presence that wasn’t fleeting, if a crisis of aggression somewhere in the world was followed by cries from politicians and ordinary citizens alike to beef up the peace budget.
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.