Progress Now Action

No, this is a not a simple answer to what may turn out to be the greatest decision that many of us will make in our lifetimes.  Choosing the successor to the current occupant of the White House is no trivial matter.  Considering (give it a few days-weeks to sink in) the sheer magnitude of the tasks necessary to un-do the enormous damage done by the current mis-adminstration drives home this importance.

 

To that end I offer May 2007 Esquire magazine.  OK, by-pass the pop-culture, beautiful people, buy-buy-buy, cute and trendy…but turn-on your mind when you get to page 108.  Here you will find the latest revelations of Thomas P.M. Barnett, “The State of the World.”  You’ll need to already be a subscriber (those are the “…whoops missed that one…” crew) or hope that you can find a copy for sale at a local store, because Barnett’s stuff is rarely found free off of the internet.

 

Some of this stuff is so scary smart it hurts to read it, the first time, the second and maybe even the third.  After even partially absorbing his “good news – bad news – wild card” explanation of the world, and how the current occupant has undermined this Nation, I am very impressed with his summation of the 2008 election:

 

     “Don’t listen to candidates who tell you this whole election boils down to one thing and one thing alone.  We need a president with more than one answer to every question, one whose tool kit is as diverse as his – or her – ideology is flexible.  We need a deal maker, a compromiser, a closer.  We need someone able to finish what others cannot and start that which others dare not. 

     We need a leader who knows many things, because we’ve had quite enough of those who know only one big thing.”

- Thomas P.M. Barnett, Esquire magazine, The State of the World, page 136.

Another thing that I would find very necessary is a candidate for president who can demonstrate even a 50% understanding of the world and US National Security at the level of Mr. Barnett.  Provided that either Barnett himself is waiting in the wings to occupy a key post in the National Security Agency or the presence of a Barnett protégé to fill in the gaps.

 

In 645 days the next Democratic President of the United States of America will inherit the sacred, and horrific, tasks necessary to restore this Nation.  Having the intellectual quality of someone like Barnett behind them will be reassuring.

OK, somebody keep John H. Kennedy's feet on the ground... ;-)

This has just been released on the web by "Foreign Policy" magazine. It's an excerpt of a much broader work "The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens."

Former Congresswoman Holtzman's catalog, and evaluation, of the offenses of the current occupant of the White House is impressive. The sooner the current occupant and his lawless minions are squashed, the better. Regardless, I know that the next Democratic President will take office in 663 days.   Read More »

We had a little fun with 'Foxy' the fox today... NO, not That Kind of Fun!

We heard that Frontier was doing a Campaign Interview style promo for the 'Foxy' Frontier's Favorite Animal at the Civic Center today across from the City Hall. So we thought this would be great test of our Concept of Instant Vigils.

We flew downtown and did a 'one indian' to their 'circle the wagons' maneuver. The media types applauded my arrival but grumbled later when they had trouble getting a shot without our signs in the background.

Our sign on one side said.

Call Foxy and tell her to
Stop the Iraq War
and impeach Bush

and on the other side

Call Foxy and say
Stop the War and
impeach Bush.

Amazing the amount of eyeballs these signs got.

It was Fun...
you all shoulda been there.

Maybe next time, eh! Join Us.
Impeachment can be fun.

John

WeeklyVigilsToImpeach.Us
Link

ProgressNowAction Member
Link

What does manifest destiny have to do with our nation's textbooks?

A lot, apparently.

In his excellent and slender book, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right, Columbia professor Anders Stephanson traces the idea of American exceptionalism from the Puritans to the cold war.

When the Puritans came to the New World, it was -- they believed -- as the Chosen People. Since the Jews had violated the covenant with God, and then the Catholics, and then the Protestant reformers, the responsibility had fallen to the Puritans to reveal God's truth on earth, and in return he would reward them.

And lo and behold, he did: he gave them America. The New World was incontestable evidence that God favored the Puritans, and to keep their end of the bargain they had only to spread Christian civilization in the form of American democracy around the world. (Sound familiar? Freedom is on the march...)

Confident in their mandate from God, the Puritans and their descendants went about subduing the earth, murdering the Indians, and cornering the free market. If these activities brought pain and suffering, they were nonetheless necessary and not entirely regrettable means to the divine and glorious end of bringing the world to heel, overseeing a thousand years of peace, and ushering in the apocolypse.

How did we know this was our destiny? Clearly, it was manifest in a thousand signs from God: a continent rich with natural resources, small pox to wipe out the Indians (although later Ben Franklin suggested rum would be a more accurate sign), and an economic empire that escaped the fate of the British and Roman empires because it served as an "empire of the seas," dominating the world without the unpleasant side effect of having to absorb other races into the citizenry.

So, in addition to being a disturbing insight into the American psyche, what does the still very evident assumption of American exceptionalism reveal about the current moment?

For one thing, it sheds some light on all the bruhaha around evolution and intelligent design. I have to admit, this debate has mystified me -- not for its content, but for the urgency with which intelligent design proponents insist that the public accept as fact what has always seemed to me a matter of faith. In response, evolutionists have sputtered about science and secularism, perceiving a threat to the Age of Reason.

But, considering the debate in the context of manifest destiny, I would argue that something even greater is at stake. If intelligent design proponants manage to get their teaching into the textbooks, even alongside evolution, the destinarian mindset will have won, and children will learn that history is not random, but a series of carefully placed steps leading to an inherently good end. Intelligent design affirms that people get what they deserve, what is is what ought, and injustice can be safely ignored.

And what if the evolutionists win? Stripped of the myth of a logical purpose to history, how could we justify policies that amount to killing others so we may live as we please? How could we say, even today, our soldiers do not die in vain? How could any of us, not the least our president, continue to sleep soundly at night, lulled by the logic that America is strong because it is blessed, and blessed because it is strong?

I'm a former factory worker, having spent 33 years in manufacturing.

During that time i was a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. I've been a union steward, safety rep, officer, and executive delegate to the local AFL-CIO. I am a strong union supporter, yet i have some very definite criticisms of mainstream unionism. I'll discuss that in depth at a later time.

I have researched Colorado labor history, and i have helped to edit and write a book about a strike of coal miners in 1927:

Slaughter in Serene: the Columbine Coal Strike Reader

I am an activst for progressive social progress and radical economic change. I first became an activist in 1975. I'm also a graphic designer, and i have created a lot of posters for progressive causes. My website is:

Rebel Graphics

If you haven' t read The Grapes of Wrath recently, stop what you're doing and dig up a copy right now.

For one thing, it's much funnier than it was in tenth grade English; it's also pretty dirty. I don't know how that escaped me.

And, on the off moments when the preacher isn't lusting after farmers' daughters, it manages to offer a pretty radical critique of our very own Ownership Society.

Steinbeck writes,

"And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away.

And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need.

And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

The great owners ignored the three cries of history ... and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression.

The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmurings of revolt so that it might be stamped out.

The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on."

Ai yi yi. Gas, spies, revolt... Reading Steinbeck this week feels not so much like a history lesson as an analysis of the current news and possibly a foreshadowing of what more is to come.

What to take from this great American novel? One is simply the feeling of dread; my brother holds a personal grudge against Steinbeck because he says that no one who writes so vividly should be allowed to tell such bleak stories.

Another is a feeling of hope. Steinbeck makes a pretty clear case for collective action, making an unapologetic case for unions and the power of the multitude.

(But, if you find youself on the side of the "haves," be warned: "the quality of owning freezes you forever into 'I,' and cuts you off forever from the 'we.'")

Another is a feeling of resignation. When the balance of power is out of whack -- as I believe it is today, both internationally and nationally -- history shows that time always pushes things back toward the center, and we who have enjoyed being on the winning end of things can expect to be rocked pretty hard.

And finally is a feeling of eager anticipation. Things change. This fight that the Bush administration seems to be waging -- quite literally -- to preserve "the American way of life" is not only so full of hubris as to make me actually believe in the Rapture myself because that kind of arrogance is just begging for a big ball of fire, but also futile.

I'm not saying things are necessarily going to get better -- it didn't for the poor Joads, hauling their entire lives from the dust-dried Oklahoma to the perverted look-but-don't-touch Eden of California. Just that they will be different, and rather than fight it, like the foolish owners in Steinbeck's morality tale, we might as well lean into it and adapt with some kind of integrity.

President Carter is my hero. He's a giant among men, and in his shadow George Bush is seen most clearly for all that he is . . and isn't. President Carter had a few choice words for George the Younger in today's LA Times:

- "I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican."

- "Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top U.S. leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world."

- "[U]nlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq."

- "It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate 'cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment' on people in U.S. custody."

- "We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation."

- "Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups."

- "Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations)."

- "I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable."

- "It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years."

Read the full text of the article in the extended entry. And run, don't walk, to the nearest Tattered Cover (or other locally owned book store) and buy a copy of President Carter's new book, Our Endangered Values - America's Moral Crisis.   Read More »

Author and funny guy Harmon Leon joins us to talk about his new book Republican Like Me--Inflitrating Red-State, White-Ass, and Blue-Suit American.

Here's what Creative Loafing had to say about Harmon's new book:

In the world of neoconservative pirouette PR, every day but Fitzmas (blogspeak for the day Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced the indictment of "Scooter" Libby in conjunction with the CIA leak case) can seem like Opposite Day. Bush is a "most brilliant man," "Brownie" was doing a heckuva job, and the mission in Iraq is accomplished and going well. And yet a slimming but substantial subset of credulous Americans still smile and nod and even applaud through it all. Who are these people?San Francisco journalist (by which, of course, I mean "Blue State anti-American terrorist sympathizer") Harmon Leon decided to find out by infiltrating the right in Republican Like Me: Infiltrating Red-State, White-Ass and Blue-Suit America. The title is an allusion to John Howard Griffin's controversial Black Like Me, an account of the white journalist's 1959 journey through the Deep South, disguised as a black man.

Leon goes through an entire conservative costume shop of characterizations in his quest to probe the real right wing. Where Griffin was sincere in his attempt to understand a parallel world, Leon's anthropological mission to bridge the Red State-Blue State chasm is mostly a ruse. A stand-up comedian and writer for the likes of "The Howard Stern Show" and "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment," Leon is more interested in poking fun at the right wing's (and, occasionally, the left's) grand follies than in joining hands across the great divide. Not that they don't make it awfully easy on him.

Whether meeting with white supremacist recruiters at an Applebee's, gleefully shouting signature Terminator lines while volunteering for Arnold Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial campaign, or posing as a gay Christian who wants to give up his sinful lifestyle (the gay part), Leon is about as bipartisan as Bush, but a whole hell of a lot funnier. In an age of absurdity fit to make Aristophanes shoot milk through his nose, a trickster like Leon is a welcome reflection of our ridiculous reality.

-- Creative Loafing, Atlanta , November 2, 2005

Harmon was a cool guy. Pretty funny too. If you get a chance, pick up his book. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. It made me laugh.


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I'm just returning from a fantastic speech by Jonathan Kozol, who is on tour talking about his new book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.

Kozol does for education policy what Oliver Sachs does for medicine: he breathes life into statistics and jargon. Kozol shows what it means to be in a crowded classroom with no money, how the cafeteria smells, the dilemma of the principal who is trying to keep what little funding she has but hating putting teachers through the regulations No Child Left Behind demands.

I've read two of his previous books, Amazing Grace and Savage
Inequalities, and Kozol is satisfying to me not only because he's talking about the work that I do and the politics I loathe; what I especially love about him is that he uses moral language. In the eyes of God, he says, all children are equal, but in the eyes of America, some children are valuable, and some children are cheap.   Read More »

In addition to hosting a well-respected national radio program, Thom Hartmann is a prolific writer. And he does a better job than anyone, in my humble opinion, writing about politics and current affairs from a historical perspective.

In an article for Common Dreams, The Founders Confront Judge Moore, Hartmann refuted the Alabama Judge's arguments about the display of religious text in public courthouses. But he did a lot more than that. He wrote a phenomenal condemnation of the Bush Administration from the perspective of the experts on our Democracy - our Founders.

Click on the linked text for the original article. I've also republished the full text in the extended entry.   Read More »