My guess is, there are thousands - hundreds of thousands in fact - out there just like me. Tired of accepting a backseat. Tired of feeling powerless and voiceless. Tired of the squalid state of our public affairs. At at heart, more than ready, willing, and able to take on the system.
I hope I didn't spoil things, but those are the final words from the epilogue of the new book by our very own Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Taking on the System: Rules of Radical Change in a Digital Era. I was fortunate enough to receive an uncorrected proof so that I would be able to write about it. As you can tell from the front page, you have less than a month until it is "officially available."
And since I have already told you the end of the book, let me do the same for this review. Go forth, purchase, and read. With less than three months between its publication date and our next national election, you will have a lot of useful information to absorb.
If you want to know why I say that, you will have to keep reading this diary.
I have in recent diaries at times explored the possibility of leaving teaching, in part because the context I need in order to teach effectively may be changing, becoming more restrictive. Also, I teach government, and I am not completely sure what our government is. And, as I told a few people in Austin, something had come up which had the possibility of my moving to the world of politics and government. People have encouraged me to try to stay in teaching, and those with whom I spoke at NN08 asked me to keep them informed.
This diary is in response to those requests, and in the context which I have just laid out. And by my standards it will be a relatively short diary.
that is how moved I am right now. I have just finished reading a column that is affirming of life, insistent on moral clarity, and totally appropriate to the incident which occasions its writing, the arrest of Radovan Karadzic. It is by Roger Cohen of the New York Times, and is entitled Karadzic and War’s Lessons.
Perhaps it will not move you as it did me. But you should read it. It should not be excerpted, which is all I can do without violating copyright. So I am going to ask a favor. Please read the column. If you do nothing else this morning, I think you will find my request reasonable. After you've done that, if you want, we can talk further. And anything I have to add will be below the fold. But don't feel obligated to do anything - except read Cohen's column
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain appeared Tuesday to suggest rationing of veterans’ health care may be needed so combat veterans can receive the care they deserve.
I am a veteran (Vietnam Era) who (a) did not serve in combat, and (b) has never had to make use of the VA health care system. Still, I feel an obligation to fully fund the appropriate health-care needs of ALL who have served, and thus recent statements by the Senator from Arizona, including his proposals to partially privatize veterans' health care by offering vouchers for service at private medical facilities, concern me as indicating an abandonment of the solemn commitment we have previously made to those who have served on our behalf.
In this diary I want to explore the cited article and some related issues, and I invite you to join me below the fold.
Let me reiterate what I say in the title. This is one person’s perception.
Let me put that into context. I have attended all three conventions, and organized and led at least one panel at each. I also write this as a long-time member of this community and someone who lives in the National Capital region and is somewhat politically active here. That sentence is offered solely to perhaps help readers understand some of what I will offer. While this is my perception, my observations, my analysis, I hope that this diary can provide an occasion of conversation, where others can provide evidence supporting or gainsaying what I have offered. After all, I was but one of 2,000 attendees, and only saw a small fraction of the sessions.
We were honored. Yes, only about 50 people were there at any one minute, maybe 70 or so total with those who came and went during the 70+ minutes of the panel.
There were several other good panels at the same time, 10:30 on Friday morning. Also, that was the only time the organizers could schedule former Alabama Governor Don Siegleman.
The first minute or so of sound is missing (I will explain that and more below the fold).
I am going to suggest that, even though it will take more than an hour to watch panel, you consider recommending this diary. Let me explain that, and more, below.
Really. As I write, it is a bit past 7 AM in my room at the Hilton in Austin Texas, on what promises to be another fairly hot day. It is also quite warm already. Saying the day will be fairly hot refers to how this day will begin, with our Ask the Speaker event with Nancy Pelosi. And I am sure that more than one person will offer opinions about that event, perhaps even several live-blogging it as it occurs.
This diary, however, has an entirely different purpose. It will be my only even semi-serious writing effort at least until I arrive at the airport on my journey home tomorrow. Herein I will explain why I am not writing - even comments - most of the time I am here, and offer a brief explanation of what has been for me the most significant moments of this trip Deep in the Heart of Texas. Since both of these are likely of importance only to me, perhaps that will explain the title.
Continue reading if like the proverbial feline (aka pootie) you find your curiosity being piqued.
As I write this, I am at the gate at National Airport here in Arlington Virginia, on my way for the 3rd consecutive bloggers conference, this year known as Netroots Nation 2008. And I can think of nothing more important for me to do with the rest of my week.
Why is it so important? Because we need to come together for the sake of the future of this nation. If we have any doubt, the events of recent days should make that absolutely clear. Yesterday we saw the results yet again of packing the courts, when a divided en banc 4th Circuit upheld the right of Bush to detain indefinitely civilians taken custody in the United States. Really? How would Madison and the other Founders have reacted to such an assertion of uncontrolled executive power? We have seen EPA trying to avoid following Federal Court mandates, HHS trying to redefine birth control as abortion, and a president knowing he would be overridden vetoing the Medicare fix on the grounds it was unfair to insurance companies!!
Below the fold I will remind myself - and you if you are still reading - why our getting together is so important. And why, even if you cannot be with us physically, you should be supporting what we are doing
It was 11th grade English with Mr. Turner at Mamaroneck High School. He was fond of summarizing great works of literature with a single phrase. And for Macbeth his line was simple: "Anticipation is greater than realization." He argued strongly that we invest so much in our goals and dreams that even when we completely achieve them we are inevitably disappointed because "anticipation is greater than realization." Mr. Turner did not view this as a bad thing, for if we did not look for the big things ahead we would not be motivated sufficiently to take the actions to move us forward even to the lesser achievements we eventually do accomplish. But he also warned us that if we allowed ourselves to be disappointed by what we actually achieved, then we would find nothing satisfactory enough, that our accomplishments would sour on us, and eventually we would stop trying, because since we never fully realized the fullness of our wildest dreams, the perpetual disappointment could sour us on life.
I have recently been very much reminded of that teaching as I observe the political processes, especially as we explore them here. And I have finally come to the conclusion that Mr. Turner was at best partly right.
Each Tomahawk missile that the United States fires in Afghanistan costs at least $500,000. That’s enough for local aid groups to build more than 20 schools, and in the long run those schools probably do more to destroy the Taliban.
That is from Nicholas Kristof's column, It Takes a School, Not Missiles. My title? Well, consider the first sentence of that column:
Since 9/11, Westerners have tried two approaches to fight terrorism in Pakistan, President Bush’s and Greg Mortenson’s.
And perhaps this draws my attention because I am both a Quaker who views the use of military force not as the first thing to be taken from our toolbox of international relations, and I am a school teacher who has learned the helping lift up others is far more effective in changing behavior than is strict discipline. I encourage you to read what Kristof offers, and I invite you to consider my reflections thereupon.
That’s why the Bush White House’s corruption in the end surpasses Nixon’s. We can no longer take cold comfort in the Watergate maxim that the cover-up was worse than the crime. This time the crime is worse than the cover-up, and the punishment could rain down on us all.
Strong words. The final words in a column appearing in tomorrow's New York Times by Frank Rich entitled The Real-Life ‘24’ of Summer 2008. While the column title invokes Jack Bauer, the column is in fact an exploration of a new book by Jane Mayer of THe New Yorker entitled The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. Rich's discussion makes the book seem like a must read. Of greater importance, what he describes from the book should lead us all to demand MEANINGFUL investigations by the Congress, NOW, even if that requires an impeachment investigation to accomplish.
a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.
Hope:
the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best
In each case, the first definition of the noun form of the word as found at Dictionary.com Both conditions/emotions can be real, but both can be illusionary, leading us to act overly defensively or not at all in the first case, or blindly without regard for consequence if in the second case it approaches a pollyanish attitude.
I am a realist. I recognize that there are bad things, that there are people who intend other than good for me and those about whom I care. But if that were my dominant emotion, I would be paralyzed, unable to act in a fashion to make a difference in the world around me. Had I any doubt, I would merely need to look at how fear has distorted our politics and our policy.
A personal note: I have seen children dying of AIDS and hunger; I have had malaria and been chased through the jungle by militias. I want the G-8 to address all the aspects of global poverty, yet nothing affects me as much as what I have seen in Darfur.
I tilt obsessively at the windmills of Darfur because, quite simply, its people haunt me: the young woman who deliberately made a diversion of herself so the janjaweed would gang-rape her and miss her little sister running in the opposite direction; the man whose eyes were gouged out with a bayonet; the group of women beaten with their own babies until the children were dead.
After what you have just read, there is only one sentence left in the column by Nicholas Kristof entitled The Pain of the G-8’s Big Shrug. I will add a few words of my own.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.
If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.
If you do not recognize them, the first quote is from Through the Looking Glass and the second from Marshall's opinionMarbury v Madison. Until today I could hope that the 2nd would be the operable principle in the operating of our democratic republic, but with the vote today I will no longer have any doubt that instead the words penned by Charles Dodgson under his pen name of Lewis Carroll take precedence, the role of the speaker, Humpty Dumpty being shared equally by the President and the Senate. And thus I have a problem.
Then perhaps you should consider joining or supporting the 2008 Patriot Corp Program from Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriots Fund. Take a moment to look at this video:
Please bear with me. I have to explain. Partially as a result of my visibility here, I often get asked to write about books, particularly on education. Sometimes they show up at home or at school without notice. Even if they are good books, often it is not relevant to write about them here.
Also, people who try to turn the material from doctoral dissertations into books often find it exceedingly hard going, as my dearly beloved has discovered over the past few years.
And personal narratives can also be frustrating, because regardless of the success portrayed in the book, one immediately wonders if that success is transferable beyond the individual personalities, the specific context in which it occurred.
I have recently finished a book that is a personal narrative, derived from a doctoral dissertation. And I am going to suggest that even for a general audience such as this, it is not only worthy my writing about it, but also encouraging you to read it. It is entitled Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way: Lessons from an Urban Classroom and was written by Brian Schultz.
In 1973, when OPEC imposed its oil embargo, U.S. oil imports composed 30 percent of our needs; today, they make up more than 60 percent, with a growing proportion of that crude coming from the world's least stable regions. At around $145 a barrel, the United States, by my calculations, will spend more on imported oil this year than it will spend on its own defense budget, and much of that money will flow into the coffers of those who wish us ill.
Okay, we know all that, don't we? So why I am writing about Gal Luft's Washington Post piece Iran and Brazil Can Do It. So Can We.? Look at the two countries in that title. Both are in the midst of lots of oil. Israel is near oil-rich but hostile nations. Iran produces lots of oil but has no meaningful refining capacity. And both are moving away from gasoline as the primary means of powering transportation. How they and other countries are doing it is certainly worth our exploration.
For nearly two terms in office, Team Bush has been undermining what constitutional conservative scholar Bruce Fein calls the "very architecture of the Constitution." And they've had a pretty good run at it.
Let's see. we've already destroyed the Fourth Amendment on unreasonable search and seizure. Has that stopped terrorism cold? Does Osama Bin Laden quiver in fear because we have crippled the Fifth and Sixth Amendments?
And the First? Have we defanged Islamist extremists by damaging the First Amendment? Are we any safer? Does this strike you as an effective remedy to terrorism?
The words are from the last book of Molly Ivins, cowritten with Lou Dubose. These are Mollys' words, from her introduction, entitled with the words of Ben Franklin: "A REPUBLIC - IF WE CAN KEEP IT."
