Kucinich 2008

At this point, I'm holding hard and fast to my values and my views on the issues. I consider myself to be an old school liberal, which is a new school progressive. Kucinich opposed the war from the outset, and has been calling for it's speedy end ever since. He favors universal health care, same sex marriage, a repeal of the tax cuts for the uber-wealthy, etc. In other words, he believes and will say he believes--without equivocation--the things that really matter to so many of us.

So why don't we progressives even, decide to take his candidacy seriously? In part, it's because we are suckers for the mainstream media that wants us to think someone like Kucinich is kooky and unelectable. At the end of the day, Kucinich may not have the support it takes to get so far in a primary field filled/filling up with "stars" like Clinton and Obama. But I'm done being a Democrat. I'm a progressive and I line up behind the candidate that most closely shares and supports my worldview.

Obama for Prez?

Until this week, I was steadfastly refusing to buy into the Obama hype. For my taste, especially in these near apocalyptic Bush years, I thought him too smooth and non-committal on the big issues. But after listening to him during his media blitz this week, I'm rapidly changing my opinion.

Infinitely more intelligent and certainly more curious and open-minded that the current occupant of the White House, his relative inexperience doesn't concern me very much. Feingold aligns most perfectly with my progressive leanings. But I'm learning that Obama may not be quite as Hillary Clinton-esque as I had assumed.

He's got brains, charisma and a forward looking and thinking approach to the world's problems that has been so sorely lacking the last six years; in the leadership of both parties. Clinton is a non-starter for me. Edwards and Feingold would be my picks in a primary without Obama, but should he choose to run he seems to have the best chance of genuinely inspiring Democratic voters all across the country to really believe that a change could be in store.

I find myself quietly hoping that he decides to throw his hat in the ring. This appears to be his moment. Six to 10 more years in the Senate won't likely make him any hotter than he is right now.

Spitzer to Push for Gay Marriage

Add NY gubernatorial candidate and aggressive Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to the VERY short list of prominent, respected nationally recognized leaders to come out strongly in favor of gay marriage. This is no small thing in Democratic politics and may portend, I hope, the beginning of a new sense of courage among Democratic candidates and officals to stand and run on principle, rather than polls.

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October 7, 2006
Spitzer Vows to Push for Gay Marriage in New York
By DANNY HAKIM
By saying on Thursday night that he will push to legalize gay marriage, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer put himself at the vanguard of the effort to recognize such unions, staking out a position that most prominent Democrats, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, have shied away from.

Mr. Spitzer, who is running for governor and holds a commanding lead in the polls, made his strongest declaration yet in support of gay marriage in his remarks to the Empire State Pride Agenda, the state’s leading gay lobbying group. He told the audience, “We will make it law in New York.”

If elected, Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, would be the most prominent state official in the nation to call for the legalization of gay marriage, though Democratic candidates for governor in California and Massachusetts have also expressed support. Many prominent Democrats, including Senator Clinton, have supported gays on other issues but not on this one, which has led to friction in their relations with gay leaders. Among the few prominent politicians who support it are Senators Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats; and Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican.

Mr. Spitzer’s position could be a perilous one for a politician considered presidential material, and he has acknowledged that if elected governor, he would first push other legislative priorities including cutting property taxes and overhauling Medicaid . But last night he said he would not let outside pressures influence his stance.

“We will not ask whether this proposition of legalizing same-sex marriage is popular or unpopular; we will not ask if it’s hard or easy; we will simply ask if it’s right or wrong,” he told a crowd of nearly 1,200 gathered at a Midtown hotel ballroom. “I think we know in this room what the answer to that question is.”

A Bad Day

This is a terrible thing that is happening, right now as I type. The House has already approved the bill at issue and the Senate today is debating it. If this passes, and there is every expectation that it will be law--possibly by week's end; the next time the President or his supporter says we are fighting "them" to preserve our values or way of life we need to ask him to explain just what those values really are.

Rushing off a Cliff
The New York Times Editorial

Thursday 28 September 2006

Here's what happens when this irresponsible Congress railroads a profoundly important bill to serve the mindless politics of a midterm election: The Bush administration uses Republicans' fear of losing their majority to push through ghastly ideas about antiterrorism that will make American troops less safe and do lasting damage to our 217-year-old nation of laws - while actually doing nothing to protect the nation from terrorists. Democrats betray their principles to avoid last-minute attack ads. Our democracy is the big loser.

Republicans say Congress must act right now to create procedures for charging and trying terrorists - because the men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks are available for trial. That's pure propaganda. Those men could have been tried and convicted long ago, but President Bush chose not to. He held them in illegal detention, had them questioned in ways that will make real trials very hard, and invented a transparently illegal system of kangaroo courts to convict them.

It was only after the Supreme Court issued the inevitable ruling striking down Mr. Bush's shadow penal system that he adopted his tone of urgency. It serves a cynical goal: Republican strategists think they can win this fall, not by passing a good law but by forcing Democrats to vote against a bad one so they could be made to look soft on terrorism.

Last week, the White House and three Republican senators announced a terrible deal on this legislation that gave Mr. Bush most of what he wanted, including a blanket waiver for crimes Americans may have committed in the service of his antiterrorism policies. Then Vice President Dick Cheney and his willing lawmakers rewrote the rest of the measure so that it would give Mr. Bush the power to jail pretty much anyone he wants for as long as he wants without charging them, to unilaterally reinterpret the Geneva Conventions, to authorize what normal people consider torture, and to deny justice to hundreds of men captured in error.

These Are Some of the Bill's Biggest Flaws:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of "illegal enemy combatant" in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret - there's no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable - already a contradiction in terms - and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

There is not enough time to fix these bills, especially since the few Republicans who call themselves moderates have been whipped into line, and the Democratic leadership in the Senate seems to have misplaced its spine. If there was ever a moment for a filibuster, this was it.
We don't blame the Democrats for being frightened. The Republicans have made it clear that they'll use any opportunity to brand anyone who votes against this bill as a terrorist enabler. But Americans of the future won't remember the pragmatic arguments for caving in to the administration.

They'll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation's version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Vote Early Vote Often

Yep, voting fraud is easy and seems to leave no traces at all.

Exposed by none less than FOX News.... (hat tip)

watch the video.


Democracy in danger.

Not Quite Done with the Racist Slurs During Campaigns

George Allen must be sweating Jim Webb's challenge.

See, a Webb volunteer follows Allen around with a video camera. Allen made fun of this at a recent event, but in doing so, played on fears of immigrants and racist panderings.

Democrat James Webb's Senate campaign accused Sen. George Allen (R) of making demeaning comments Friday to a 20-year-old Webb volunteer of Indian descent.
S.R. Sidarth, a senior at the University of Virginia, had been trailing Allen with a video camera to document his travels and speeches for the Webb campaign. During a campaign speech Friday in Breaks, Virginia, near the Kentucky border, Allen singled out Sidarth and called him a word that sounded like "Macaca."

"This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent. He's following us around everywhere. And it's just great. We're going to places all over Virginia, and he's having it on film and its great to have you here and you show it to your opponent because he's never been there and probably will never come."

After telling the crowd that Webb was raising money in California with a "bunch of Hollywood movie moguls," Allen again referenced Sidarth, who was born and raised in Fairfax County.

"Lets give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia," said Allen, who then began talking about the "war on terror."

I read this and watched the video on DailyKos...

UPDATE: Atrios notes that "makak" (and variations) are recognized racial slurs aimed at North Africans. According to Wikipedia, Allen's mother is of European and Tunisian extraction.

Wow - the far right never changes its playbook.

Another Update

Hi-

Today we traveled into the city of Bethlehem to visit two centers -- one specialized in Palestinian non-violence and resistance training with adult community groups, including Hamas, the other was a youth center that offers social services to the residence while also teaching non-violence in what amounts to head start program-aged kids and youth.
After that we walked through one of several Palestinian refugee camps. The one we went to is called D'heisheh. It had about 12,000 displaced people there and nearby. Their school alone had 6000 students, with class sizes of 50 plus and only 12 teachers serving everyone there at the camp. Can you imagine that?!

This area held the poorest of the poor. I can't begin to explain the level of harassment that the Palestinian people face but here it is particularly acute. For example, the Israeli army entered the refugee camp in 2000 and demanded entry into every home. But even though the people opened their doors to allow the armies free entry, instead the solders blasted holes in the walls to gain entry just to intimidate and destroy what little structure they had.

The list of cruelty is long. Many residents of Bethlehem have not been able to travel seven miles across the city to Jerusalem because they don't have, and can't get, a security pass from Israeli government. Sure looks like apartheid to me! And that's exactly what it is! Many of the city\s residents are in jail for the most trivial offences.

But there is hope. In this same refugee camp, atop of a very tall hill that over look the city, the people have pooled enough of their resources to build a first class community center, with a large banquet area, a public library and conference space. And this space is made available to all of the residents there free of charge. NOW THAT'S COMMUNITY!

I was reminded several times of the old Negro spiritual Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around and also of the poem titles And Still We Rise by Maya Angelou.

Before Hamas won the election, there was hope for a two-state solution. But now, the Jewish government has imposed more harsh rules and most of the Palestinian people we have met disbelieve, with good reason, that a two state solution here is not a viable solution to their plight. The regional economy simply can't sustain more than one state. And the wall that has been built around the entire area makes it damn near impossible for them to travel into the areas where work might be found if it is available at all to them. The Israeli's hold the purse strings to everything, it seems.

I 'm writing this at the home of our Palestinian host for the evening. It is a large wonderfully warm family that I wish each of you could meet. Their hospitality beats the best of the southern comfort culture we have at home. Everyone really has opened their arms to us and embraced us. And we have them.

Tomorrow morning we will travel into Ramallah to visit with college students who are waging a mighty battle for peace with restorative justice. And later on tomorrow evening we will return to East Jerusalem to visit with Israeli college students who are doing much the same thing.

More later. I don't want to be rude to our hosts and it's getting late. Time for bed for all.

Much peace and love
Di-