ALA passes Iraq War Resolution

For a group that supposedly has their hair in buns and wears sensible shoes , they've got more balls than most Democrats.

Resolution on the Connection between the Iraq War and Libraries

Whereas, the justifications for the invasion of Iraq have proven to be completely unfounded; and

Whereas, the war already has taken the lives of more than 100,000 Iraqis and more than 1700 U.S. soldiers; and

Whereas, these numbers will continue to mount as long as the U.S. remains in Iraq; and

Whereas, during the current occupation, many of Iraq's cultural treasures, including libraries, archives, manuscripts, and artifacts, have been destroyed, lost, or stolen; and

Whereas, as long as U.S. forces remain in Iraq, the inevitable escalation of fighting threatens further destruction of Iraq's cultural heritage; and

Whereas, the U.S. is spending billions of dollars every month for the occupation; and

Whereas, even a small fraction of these resources would be more than sufficient for rebuilding and greatly enhancing the libraries and educational institutions of both Iraq and the US; therefore, be it

Resolved that the American Library Association calls for the withdrawal from Iraq of all U.S. military forces, and the return of full sovereignty to the people of Iraq.

Resolved that the American Library Association calls upon the United States government to provide material assistance through the United Nations for the reconstruction of Iraq, including its museums, libraries, schools, and other cultural resources.

Resolved that the American Library Association calls upon the United States government to subsequently shift its budgetary priorities from the occupation of Iraq to improve support for vital domestic programs, including U.S. libraries.

Resolved that this resolution be sent to all members of Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the President of the United States, and the press.

---

Related ALA policies:

18.4 Resolution on Libraries and Cultural Resources in Iraq (June 25, 2003)
53.7 Destruction of Libraries
53.8 Libraries: an American Value

Additional precedent: ALA Resolution on the Southeast Asia Conflict (1971)

Mover: Tom Twiss; Seconder: Mary Sue Brown

Approved by ALA Council, June 29, 2005

Democracy Bonds

What do you think of the Democratic Party's democracy bonds? Is it just another way to suck more money out of people for a corrupt party or is it a real reform that will help stop corruption by getting funding from the grassroots?

What do you get for your money?

The Democratic Party

Remixes: Creative uses of free government information | Free Government Information

This site shows some interesting ways of organizing and repackaging government information. GovTrack.us and Iraq Coalition Casualty Count are worth looking at.

Remixes: Creative uses of free government information | Free Government Information: "This page will highlight some of the free 'remixes' of existing free government information done by individuals and other groups. "

Will the Liberal Malcontents wind up in jail?

Apparently, the FEC is considering whether it should regulate blogs, as they might represent a vehicle for "circumventing campaign finance laws," and because "some Web sites actually provide unregulated benefits to specific political campaigns." Hmmm. It seems unlikely that the FEC will really make much of a stance here, but if I am in favor of public campaign financing as a means to get campaign spending into some semblance of sanity, (not like it will ever happen), should I also agree that blogs should be regulated? Is it true that they can effectively become a means to circumvent campaign finance laws? Very ironically, the link is to an article on FOX's website, which concludes with the following paragraph: "TV networks can broadcast and newspapers can publish hard-charging political editorials without violating campaign finance laws under a journalist exemption. Bloggers want to be included in the exemption, leaving the FEC to decide whether bloggers are journalists."

The "I'd rather fight them there" logic

Bush Criticized for Linking 9/11 and Iraq - Yahoo! News: "McCain, R-Ariz., did defend Bush's call to stop terrorism abroad before it reaches the U.S. shore. Appearing on CNN's 'Larry King Live' program, McCain said that those spreading violence in Iraq 'are the same guys who would be in New York if we don't win in Iraq.'"

I feel I've heard this claim/argument a number of times. What does it mean exactly? That we invaded a sovereign country so we could use their country to fight terrorists on their land instead of ours? Some in Iraq do think that's what it means and are upset about it:

"Why are the Americans drawing terrorism into Iraq?" asked Abdul Ridha al-Hafadhi, 58, head of a humanitarian aid group.

"Why don't they find another place to fight terrorism?" he asked. "I don't feel comforted by Bush's remarks; there must be a timetable for their departure."

Even if that's what it means, how is it true? Just because the US military is in Iraq this is supposed to mean that terrorists are less likely to hit the US mainland because we've provided a better target for them in their own neighborhood so they don't have to travel to get to us? Is that what the military believes their "job" is? To be a target for terrorism so US civilians don't have to be targets?

WSJ.com - 'Downing Street Memo' Has Lingering Effect

Downing St memo was on the front page of the Washington Post today and page A4 in the Wall St. Journal. The WSJ article discusses how bloggers kept the story alive by contacting main stream media outlets and asking them to cover it.

WSJ.com - 'Downing Street Memo' Has Lingering Effect: "The idea to target news operations came from Michael Clark, a Pennsylvania professor of ancient history and occasional poster to Daily Kos who didn't know the Fesmires before joining the effort. Mr. Clark said he knew nothing about running such a campaign but decided to contact three media outlets a day, including the likes of C-Span, the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

On June 3, the group directed messages to NBC. On June 6, MSNBC did a segment on the Downing Street memo. On June 9, Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor of NBC's evening newscast, posted a request for a truce on his Internet blog: 'One more note to those of you who are part of the mass email project on the so-called Downing Street Memo: That's enough, we get it...it's an important story...and all you're doing now is taking up computer space. We're well aware of the story, we've covered it, and likely will again.'"

Mr. Fesmire, the group's spokesman, said he is often asked who is really behind Downingstreetmemo.com and what kind of support it is receiving from national liberal groups. The truth, he said, is hard for some people to swallow.

"It really is just six people, and I don't even know the name[s] of two of them," he said. "People find it hard to believe it when I tell them that for a $20 Web-hosting fee, you too can get something like this going."

Review: The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space

Young Philly Politics has a few intelligent posts that take a critical look at the Daily News' stinkmeister article on homeless people and the Ben Franklin Parkway. One blogger contends that the article prepares the way for the city to sweep out the Parkway before Live8, but I think that would have happened regardless. More interestingly he points out that Philadelphia is nationally recognized for it's homeless programs and criticizes the philly newspapers for not covering this story. Good point. The issue of "the homeless" is important and I'd like to see more serious reporting and discussion about it.

In light of this, I thought I'd throw this out:
H-Net Review: Adrienne Burk on The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space: "Mitchell's contention is that wealthy cities are being refashioned due to global neo-liberal restructuring, leading not to an 'annihilation of space by time,' but rather a collapse of public space itself through the 'constant production and reproduction of certain kinds of places', that is, locations that uphold the 'disneyfication' of public space, allowing unencumbered passage for social elites but criminalizing and/or eradicating the homeless (p. 165, original emphasis)."

Run into any triumphalists lately?

Not so surprisingly absent, after the recent assassinations in Lebanon and the election in Iran, are comments from pundits who jumped up to give the Bush administration credit for the Cedar Revolution and the supposed "sea change" to Democracy in the Middle East. Am I mistaken, but wasn't one of the main rationalizations for invading Iraq, on the part of reactionaries as well as "liberal hawks" like Friedman, to put pressure on Iran to "democratize" and become less of a hard-line religious state? Well, that didn't seem to work, did it? They all lined up to attribute causality to Bush's policies for events in Lebanon that in reality had their roots in a history that long pre-dated his administration . But they don't seem to notice that the facts on the ground seem to be indicating that another causal link they assumed -- that invading Iraq would "Democratize" Iran -- seems have been faulty also.

More hypocracy

No links here. Just a need to vent. Has anyone else been struck that at the same time as Rove goes off on those pansy-assed liberals who want terrorists to have therapy, Rumsfield admits that the US is having meetings with insurgents in order to have a better definition of what would make them happy. Actually, I view the leaked information about the talks as positive news; as hard as it is to believe, it could be that the Bushies might have actually learned something in spite of themselves. My guess, however, is that more likely, by meeting with specific groups the Americans aren't really trying to gather information about how to calm insurgents' anger -- but instead trying to increase in-fighting among the insurgents. Maybe the ideas is that groups that were left out of talks may direct some of their hostility towards the groups that were?

Chicago Report

Just came out of Obama's Opening Address to the American Library Association. He spoke mostly about children and the importance of reading, while heaping tons o' love on librarians, to thunderous applause and standing ovations. He talked about what libraries represent, a window to a larger world, and declared them a powerful force for good in the world. He said this is why people try to control and suppress libraries (someone screamed out, "like Bush and Cheney!") and he noted that librarians have always been on the front lines in the struggle for freedom and democracy.

Earlier I went to a session on how the civic engagement movement is transforming the mission of some libraries. What is happening at the Salt Lake City Public Library just incredible. They decided to orient their whole library around civic engagement. They asked people what they wanted from the library and the community said they wanted the library to be a neutral space where the community could gather. When they were building a new building, they told people to come to the library and write what the library meant to them on rocks. The rocks were then built into the foundation of the new building. The whole architecture is oriented around the community. At the top of a staircase, there's a 360 degree view of Salt Lake City. They have a huge room in the library called the urban room that is used for conferences, talks, meetings, policy forums, and get this, weddings, funerals, and birthday parties. Powerful stuff.

Last night I went to a Critical Mass bike ride/protest. There was a lot of good spirit and fun. I'll try to bring some back to Philly.

Top 10 reasons Meta D can't move to Shanghai

10) Liberal Malcontents will wither and die without its most articulate contributor

9) Howard Eskin will run amok without the threat of being put in his place by Meta D

8) Without his daily blog activity, all those statistics measuring how much time the average American spends surfing the web from the workplace will suddenly become completely skewed.

7) Chinese basketball players' ankles won't surive his crossover dribble.

6) Who else will be there to turn the TV off and on 1,000 times in the last two minutes of a Sixers game?

5) (reasons needed, please contribute a reason)
4) (reasons needed, please contribute a reason)
3) (reasons needed, please contribute a reason)
2) (reasons needed, please contribute a reason)

.....and the number one reason why Meta D (and Ms. Meta D) can't move to Shanghai is......
Dumplingeater will have to travel al the way to China to get good dumplings.

Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus

From Eschaton:

Eschaton: "(Washington, D.C.) - Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) has informed Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) that she and Rep. Charles Rangel, Rep. Barbara Lee, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, Rep. Xavier Becerra, Rep. John Conyers, and Rep. John Lewis are leading a newly formed Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus, with 41 members as of today."

New Jersey version

Here's a NN type group, New Jersey version. They seem to have a clear agenda and to-do list.
Group promotes campaign reform

Neighborhood Networks as a cure for White man's overbite

To keep the post short here, I'll put a description of promoting NN at the Odunde festival in a comment.

MyDD :: Unreformed Democrats, Part I

Be sure to go over to MyDD to read Chris Bowers go off:

MyDD :: Unreformed Democrats, Part I

About Industrial Areas Foundation: Who are We?

This is a social capital approach to organizing centering around people building relationships in their communities. It grows out of Saul Alinksy's idea that reform is best achieved when people organized for themselves instead of having other people do things for them, which he thought was a kind of welfare colonialism. These groups do not endorse or oppose candidates and work with whoever they can to achieve their goals.

Hmm. This approach means you'd have to be nonpartisan. NN is obviously influenced by this model, but they opted for endorsements. Is NN in a nowhere's land somewhere between a moveon type model and this model?

About Industrial Areas Foundation: Who are We?

Dean Caves

I guess the Democratic Party heads have decided to go ahead and create policy without wating for us to finish our debates about the right course of action. Here are some quotes from an article where our beloved radical, Howard Dean, and others, don't talk about Iraq at a DNC meeting, but instead say that: Democrats will appeal to voters as the party that will provide universal health insurance, build “national defense based on international cooperation,” and buttress parents’ moral authority." “We’re going to make it easier for parents to teach their kids right from wrong,” Dean said. Other risky stances the Dems want to take are: “Can we find common ground with faith-based voters around the issue of violence in the media?” "...create a task force on “violence and sexual immorality which has permeated our entertainment industry.”

Be careful what you ask for.....

Carrying the abortion debate to term

Is the argument "a woman has a right to choose" the only valid argument, or is it tacking to the right if you "frame" the argument differently. Here's a relevant article by Saletan at Slate.com.

JB

On the other hand

Here is a great organization, based on the concept of ....do-gooding? I think theirs is one of the best strategies I've seen for beginning to make inroads in "Red" country.

Excerpted from a longer discription at: http://youngphillypolitics.blogspot.com/2005/06/alternative-approach-to-defeating.html#comments

"Therefore, GoodWorks-PAC.org is recruiting Democratic Congressional candidates in the deep red parts of swing states (especially PA) who will work together in a series of public service competitions. By competing on the basis of turn-out they can hopefully produce a healthy and beneficial primary campaign in which more candidates is better for everyone. Our ideal candidates will share all infrastructure costs (legal, accounting, IT, HR, and so on) and focus solely on working together on creative public service events. In the end, the eventual nominee would have the benefit of all the candidates' turnout efforts, because the primary winner will receive the combined GOTV database built up in the course of the successive public service events.

Public service campaigns should produce a vastly increased Democratic (and anti-Santorum) turnout in the red parts of Pennsylvania in November 2006."

Do we really want to be called "liberals?"

Not that anyone needs more reasons to dispair about the political landscape, but I found this Radio Times interview very interesting. It's with Chris Hedges, a Times correspondant, about the hypocracy of both the Christian right and "liberals." Is it a good thing that we're hearing the cry that we should be proud of the term "liberals" again? I can remember when "liberalism" was attacked from the far left as well as from the right, because liberals were considered to be ineffective, uncommitted, do-gooders who abanonded the cause when the rubber really hit the road. Is it a sign of just how desperate things have gotten that there's a clamor to reclaim the legitimacy of that term? Listen to what Hedges has to say, and you might want to consider changing the name of the blog. Of course Progessive Malcontents just doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Mice vs. the Christians

I had an thought when I heard the recent story that scientists found that a genetic alteration affected sexual behaviors among mice. If such discoveries support the theory that sexual behavior has at least some genetic cauality (not to open up the nature vs. nurture false dichotomy), would that mean that God, in his infitnite wisdom, deliberately created some humans to be homosexual ? Kind of shoots the whole, "If God wanted people to be homosexuals we would have Adam and Steve, not Adam and Eve" argument to pieces, doesn't it?

Along similar lines, those of you who are men looking for cheap deterministic excuses for bad behavior might point your spouses to this article

A mention of Neighborhood Networks in the Inky

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/philadelphia_county/philadelphia/11858170.htm

RollingStone.com: The Girl Who Tried to Save the World : Politics

Remind you of anyone?

RollingStone.com: The Girl Who Tried to Save the World : Politics

Daily News Coverage of Neighborhood Networks

Philadelphia Daily News | 06/10/2005 | Gar Joseph | Casey could hear pitter-patter of Sandals: "Shadow party

Imagine a Democratic City Committee that was more about issues than self-preservation.

Imagine a party whose ward leaders backed candidates based on qualifications, not payoffs.

Imagine judicial candidates not having to make payoffs of up to $100,000 to pols and 'consultants,' instead relying on an army of volunteers willing to work for the best candidates for free.

You may say we're a dreamer, but we're not the only one. More than 200 people showed up at the first Neighborhood Network conference on Saturday.

The conference was the brainchild of Marc Stier, a Temple University prof and West Mount Airy neighborhood activist, and Stan Shapiro, a former City Council staffer.

The two wanted to keep the activism of last year's presidential race going. They also were unhappy with the local Democratic Party's inertia on issues.

'We thought about how useful it would be if we had 600 or 700 people throughout the city committed to progressive causes and willing to reach out to their neighbors,' Stier explained.

'We had the idea of creating a parallel ward and division organization,' he said.

Saturday was the beginning and those in attendance included party committeemen and women.

Stier said more than half the city's 66 wards were represented.

He insists that it's not his intention to seize control of the current party structure.

'The first thing we're doing is sending out our folks to talk up the minimum wage issue,' Stier said.

He wants to build grassroots support for a bill in Harrisburg that would raise the state's minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.15 an hour.

The next thing the group wants to do is 'continue to expand from 200 division leaders to 400 or 500,' Stier said.

'If we had 400 division leaders and each could bring 100 people to the polls, you're talking 40,000 votes,' he said. 'That could win five judgeships.'"

Meta strikes again

In his never-ending attempt to completely blow off all work responsibilities and spend all his time surfing the web, Meta has found a really good article comparing European social models to the US social model (there's an oxymoron for ya')

It's probably too late, but...

I really like the idea of using blogs as a forum for exploring the concept of NN, and soliciting feedback from those who have no particular stake. So, here's a post from a while back that hasn't already been directly linked on this blog. Although I doubt that there would be much energy still to be milked from this particular post (it was from Sunday and one interesting thing about blogs is how quickly dialogues can fall off the face of the Earth), there are some interesting comments there (one by some genious named "Dumplingeater"), and I would love to see if it's possible to re-energize the conversation on that post. In particular, I'm curious to read responses to what Rep. Mark B. Cohen had to say.

Bush on the ropes?

Here's a good summary of a bunch of bad news for the White House. Bush was finally asked about the Downing Street memo at a joint press conference with Blair. Deny and lie has worked so far, but perhaps the latest poll numbers show it's starting to unravel?

White House Briefing  News on President George W Bush and the Bush Administration:

"It remains unclear how big of a blowup the memo represents for the White House. Bush partisans consider it either old news, or flatly wrong, or both. (Bush partisans? Why should we care or give any credibility to what they think? VL)

And the American press still demonstrates no intention of aggressively following it up. (How can we pressure the press to agressively follow it up? VL)

But even if the memo doesn't detonate, there are suddenly several other potential scandals sputtering away in the press today to cause the White House worry.

• The New York Times is reporting that a White House official with ties to the oil industry repeatedly edited government climate reports to play down global warming issues.

• The Guardian reports on new State Department documents suggesting that Bush's decision not to sign the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil.

• The Texas Observer and the Associated Press are reporting that two Indian tribes working with Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist now under criminal and congressional investigation, paid $25,000 each to a conservative tax-exempt group to underwrite an event that got tribal leaders a private meeting with President Bush.

• And The Washington Post reports that senators are asking for more information about the involvement of White House officials in pushing for a $30 billion air-tanker deal now considered the most significant military contracting abuses in several decades.

All this comes as a new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows a slew of sinking numbers for Bush, including a dramatic loss of support on his ace-in-the-hole issue, the war on terror. And the public has apparently concluded that the war in Iraq was not worth it and has not made the United States safer."

Liberal Malcontents

Good Intentions Gone Bad

I like my truth short, with little details and some colorful descriptions. This foots the bill.


June 13 issue - Two years ago I went to Iraq as an unabashed believer in toppling Saddam Hussein. I knew his regime well from previous visits; WMDs or no, ridding the world of Saddam would surely be for the best, and America's good intentions would carry the day. What went wrong? A lot,

Reservation about Neighborhood Networks

Organizers of the Neighborhood Networks Conference declared the first conference a success because of the big turnout. There is also optimism about the potential of NN to make a difference in philly politics. I agree on both counts, and the organizers deserve huge thanks for their work in pulling it all together.

Here's my reservation: NN has decided to focus on local micro-politics. Ok fine, you have to start somewhere, might as well start locally. But how will NN help in organizing progressives for action at the state and national level? I would like NN to be a facilitator organization that brings together like-minded progressives in the same neighborhood. Then, these people meet, share ideas, and do stuff. Issues would be whatever the people in the neigborhoods bring up--local, state, or national. NN would be like Move-On in that it would be organizing an opposition party by facilitating people getting together in their neighborhoods. My fear is that NN will remain an organization about local politics, when our most pressing need is organizing to win at the state and national levels. Patience, you may say, patience. But there's a difference between organizing locally to win locally and organizing locally to build the base to win nationally. NN is for now focused on strategy 1. Why not pursue 1 and 2 simultaneously?

Also, I don't get the focus on the minimum wage issue. Supposedly most of the people who showed up for the conference were from center city and mount airy. Are you telling me the minimum wage is going to energize and sustain these people as an issue? We considered this in our break-out and rejected it. I think the issue to start with is ethics/corruption. It's important locally and you can take the same issue to a national level. There was much hand-wringing about how NN needed to "reach-out" to diverse groups. Yeah this is true and important, but difficult. You have to start from where you are and who shows up.


A Smoke-Filled Room: Neighborhood Networks conference wrap-up

Wellstone Action

This site has a lot of information on it about progressive organizing.

Wellstone Action

Eeeek!!! Katherine Harris to Run for Senate in 2006

Katherine Harris to Run for Senate in 2006 - Yahoo! News

The Bush Economy

Liberal Malcontents

Editorial from the NY Times. Simple but to the point.

The Bush Economy

With all of the debate about taxes, the economy and domestic spending, it is hard to imagine anyone supporting the notion of taking money from programs like Medicaid and college-tuition assistance, increasing the tax burden of the vast majority of working Americans, sending the country into crushing debt - and giving the proceeds to people who are so fantastically rich that they don't know what to do with the money they already have. Yet that is just what is happening under the Bush administration. Forget the middle class and the upper-middle class. Even the merely wealthy are being left behind in the dust by the small slice of super-rich Americans.

In last Sunday's Times, David Cay Johnston reported that from 1980 to 2002, the latest year of available data, the share of total income earned by the top 0.1 percent of earners more than doubled, while the share earned by everyone else in the top 10 percent rose far less. The share of the bottom 90 percent declined.

President Bush did not create the income gap. But the unheralded effect of his tax policy is its unequal impact on the modestly well to do. By 2015, those making between $80,000 and $400,000 will pay as much as 13.9 percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $400,000, assuming the tax cuts are made permanent. Below $80,000, most taxpayers will see their share of taxes rise slightly or stay the same.

Mr. Johnston's article quotes a prominent economist who argues that people care more about the chance to move from one income class to another (upward, of course) than about income distribution. But during the Bush years, the two main sources of class mobility - a good job and money for higher education - have increasingly failed to materialize for those who most need them. Last week's jobs report from the Labor Department confirmed that a strong labor market recovery has not taken hold. Wages for most working people failed even to outpace inflation in the past year.

That might be more bearable if things were rough all over. But the share of economic growth that is going toward corporate profits, which flow to stockholders and bondholders who are concentrated at the top of the income scale, is at historic highs.

Which brings us back to the super wealthy and the merely rich. The divide between rich and poor is unfortunately an old story, but income-class warfare among the top 20 percent of the scale is a newer phenomenon. One cause is that the further up the scale one goes, the more of one's income comes from investments, which under the Bush tax cuts enjoy about the lowest rates in the tax code. But many families making between $100,000 and $200,000 are not exactly on easy street. They don't face choices anywhere near as stark as those encountered further down the income ladder, but they face serious tradeoffs not experienced by the uppermost crust, particularly when hit with the triple whammy of college for the children, care for aging parents and preparing for their own retirement.

There is something deeply wrong about a system that calls into question a comfortable retirement or a top-notch education for people who have broken into the top 20 percent of income earners. It starts to seem politically explosive when you consider that in a decade, those making between $100,000 and $200,000 will pay about five to nine percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $1 million, assuming the Bush tax cuts are made permanent.

This is not about giving wealthy people more money to invest back into the economy. At this level, it's really about giving more money to those who have nothing to do with it except amass enormous estates for their heirs. Fixing the problem will require members of Congress to summon the courage to say no to a president who wants more for the richest of the rich at the expense of everyone else. We're not holding our breath.

The Mobility Myth - New York Times

The Mobility Myth - New York Times: "Consider, for example, two separate eras in the lifetime of the baby-boom generation. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent of the population between 1950 and 1970, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162. That gap has since skyrocketed. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent between 1990 and 2002, Mr. Johnston wrote, each taxpayer in that top bracket brought in an extra $18,000."

Kerry assails Bush on Iraq: 6/ 2/ 2005

Kerry assails Bush on Iraq: 6/ 2/ 2005: "Kerry assails Bush on Iraq
Policies on Social Security, health care also draw fire
By STEVE URBON, Standard-Times senior correspondent

NEW BEDFORD -- Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday called on Americans to be more aware of the 'bait and switch' Iraq war and the 'hollowing out' of the Army in the pursuit of a mistaken policy. "

And thank you for C-SPAN

You gotta love C-SPAN. Today they had George Lakoff on Washington Journal (he was great by the way). He kept referring to himself as a progressive and some guy calls in and says, "he says he's a progressive which is a liberal which is a socialist which is a communist." Now that's entertainment.

Does anyone not like C-SPAN? It's the only segment of the media that both liberals and conservaties agree is good, and it's the only media space where there is at least some cross-party communication and debate.
C-SPAN

Wachovia apologies for historical ties to slavery - 2005-06-01

This is a full-blown apology for slavery from Wachovia. (Philadelphia and other cities have laws that companies must disclose ties to slavery.) Hey, give them credit for following the law. How many other big companies do that? And they also sponsor a great bike race.

Wachovia apologies for historical ties to slavery - 2005-06-01: "'On behalf of Wachovia Corp., I apologize to all Americans, and especially to African-Americans and people of African descent,' said Ken Thompson, Wachovia chairman and CEO. 'We are deeply saddened by these findings.'

'We know that we cannot change the past, and we can't make up for the wrongs of slavery,' Thompson said. 'But we can learn from our past, and begin a stronger dialogue about slavery and the experience of African-Americans in our country. Today Wachovia is a company that is committed to respecting individuals and building an inclusive work environment. We want to promote a better understanding of the African-American experience, including the unique struggles, triumphs and contributions of African-Americans, and their important role in America's past and present. This is a natural fit with our company's strong focus on diversity, education and communities.'"

Catapult the propaganda

"[I]n my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
- George W. Bush
Effective propaganda must limit its points of a few and these points must be repeated until even the last member of the audience understands what is meant by them... It must limit itself to a few themes and repeat them incessantly. Each change must never affect the content of propaganda, rather must always draw the same conclusions."
- Joseph Goebbels

Philly for Change Meetup

Last night I went to the Philly for Change Meetup, a group that grew out of the Dean campaign.

Chuck Pennacchio was there, he's running as a progressive candidate against Casey. He articulated his differences with Casey - he supports right to choose, expanded stem-cell research, stronger gun safety laws and is opposed to the war in Iraq. He's a professor of poli-sci at University of the Arts, and I wanted to ask how he would deal with being labelled a flaming liberal if he beats Casey and goes up against Santorum. Being a newbie I held my tongue. One thing he pointed out was that in the primary, 80% of the vote comes from Pittsburgh and Phila.

Then someone from Neighborhood Networks plugged the conference this Saturday.

After that David Nasser of Stop Bolton spoke. He said Specter was "unable to attend" the latest vote on Bolton and claims this as a small victory. He urged folks to keep calling Specter's office (202-224-4254 ask for Chris Fitzgerald) and to write anti-Bolton letters to the editor. Although stopping Bolton is considered a long shot, it would be cool if Specter has another "previous engagment" for the next Bolton vote. So call call call!

Then we broke out into groups and watched a trailer of Robert Greenwald's new documentary on Wal-Mart. See the article about it in the New York Times.

After that there was some time for mingling. I met someone running for township council of Upper Darby. Overall I thought it was a good group. Meets 1st Wednesday of the month.

I won't be at Thomas Frank tonight, but I hope to see some malcontents at Neighborhood Networks this Saturday.

phillyskyline.com | yo

Take a break from politics with this artsy philly site.

phillyskyline.com | yo

TOM FRIEDMAN MEETS HIS MATCH: RIVERBEND IN BAGHDAD

TOM FRIEDMAN MEETS HIS MATCH: RIVERBEND IN BAGHDAD
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Good article (see comment), interesting blog

The 'I' word - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Op-ed - News

The 'I' word - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Op-ed - News