Tag Archives: endorsement

Green Party-pooper insubordination more embarrassing than imaginable

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And I thought I hade a vivid imagination. Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has issued a press release detailing her explicit intention to participate in the Sunday DNC rally. The letter is very diplomatic but it spells out the ultimatum she was given by the Colorado Greens to desist. Cynthia McKinney for President Compelling reading. On a related note. Cindy Sheehan will also be joining the lineup. This represents a significant divergence from her close allies Medea Benjamin and UFPJ’s Leslie Cagan. It shouldn’t be that way.

If you’re not inclined to read McKinney’s letter, and I’ll add it’s as direct as her speeches, I can summarize the threats made and actions taken. Spoiler alert. For agreeing to speak at a rally organized by R-68: Resignation threatened. Fundraiser, place to stay, withdrawn. All scheduled engagements canceled. Assistance to get on Wyoming ballot, withdrawn. Every effort to remove her from Colorado ballot, threatened. McKinney was also informed she had been last choice candidate of Colorado delegation. So there.

Are we witnessing someone’s hissy-fit nervous self-immolation? Could be, but it packs the wallop of a suicide bomber. Local party gutted; bystanders, fellow Greens, burned; vital preparations annulled just months from the election. Third parties probably attract people who have difficulty with authority. In this case with irreparable consequence.

Cynthia McKinney & Rosa Clemente Announce Their Participation in Anti-war, Anti-human rights Abuse Events Before the DNC
August 14, 2008

As the United States activated Navy ships and the Air Force to begin an airlift of non-specified goods into the former Soviet state of Georgia, and military exercises began in the Persian Gulf near Iran, I received communications from certain individuals among the Colorado Greens who were organizing campaign support events there, suggesting that I not participate in an anti-war program being organized by other individuals in Colorado.

Perplexed, I began to do my research to understand the nature of the fissure that I seemed to be placing myself in the middle of. The communications to me about not participating in one of the scheduled events became more and more shrill. The events ran through August 26th. When the lineup of speakers, including Rosa and me, was announced for the events in question, I received multiple communications stating in various ways that the sender from the Green Party of Colorado, was on the verge of desperation over the matter. Within a few hours, I was reading messages stating that the Green Party of Colorado would be ruined if I participated in the End the Occupations/End the War march and rally slated to take place on the morning of August 24th on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol, or if Rosa participated in a Freedom March and Rally for Human Rights and Political Prisoners at Civic Center Park the following day.

An article appeared in a local Colorado newspaper stating that Rosa and I would not appear at the events for which we had been scheduled. Rosa responded to our Colorado Green Party contact that yes, indeed, we were appearing at the two events. Both Rosa and I then received messages demanding to know by a time certain what our plans were, and asserting that the Green Party of Colorado would be totally ruined if we associated with the group sponsoring the events. In addition, we were told that at least one resignation and sustaining membership would be tendered to the Party, and that Rosa and I could expect no support on the ground in Denver from the Green Party of Colorado, including a planned fundraiser and a place to stay.

Without receiving any additional response or information from either Rosa or I, the correspondent sent a message informing us that all Green Party of Colorado events previously scheduled for us had been canceled. Further, the message stated that ballot access petitioning by Green Party of Colorado would cease in neighboring Wyoming and that all efforts would be made to remove Rosa’s and my names from the ballot in Colorado. The message also noted that the Colorado delegation overwhelmingly supported Elaine Brown at the Green Party Convention.

With the e-mail messages flying “fast and furious,” I hope I have mentioned the highlights of this episode in somewhat chronological order. What Rosa and I would like to address now, is the ideological and rational order that produced this outcome. At the very first Green Party debate held in San Francisco earlier this year, I pleaded for unity of action and purpose as we face the challenges that confront us as a country. Rosa and I are proud to join with others who are sick and tired of war, occupation, human rights abuses, and the continued incarceration of our political prisoners. We are proud to join with others who are willing to do something about it. In the context of activities in Denver, that means cooperating with some organizations new to us and others with which Rosa and I have had a long-standing relationship. Let me explain some of those relationships.

I am proud to have received a Backbone Award from the Backbone Campaign, one of the co-participants of the anti-war, anti-occupation events in question, according to the organizers.

Rosa and I are pleased to have received the endorsement of M-1 of Dead Prez, who put out a video of endorsement and is rallying other conscious Hip Hop, Generation X voters to the Green Party with Rosa and I as its nominees. Rebel Diaz was on the stage with Rosa as she accepted her Green Party nomination for Vice President. Both Dead Prez and Rebel Diaz are participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

Fred Hampton, Jr.’s mother, a victim of COINTELPRO, came to Georgia in the mid-1990s to help me gain reelection after a malicious redistricting case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Ward Churchill has traveled to my Congressional district to educate my former constituents on the COINTELPRO of yesterday and the COINTELPRO of today. Natsu Saito introduced me to other victims of COINTELPRO. I asked Kathleen Cleaver to co-author a report that was submitted to Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time of the World Conference Against Racism, on the unsolved murders of Black Panther Party members who were victims of COINTELPRO. Fred Hampton, Jr., Ward Churchill, Natsu Saito, and Kathleen Cleaver are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

As a Member of Congress, I supported the release of all political prisoners and welcomed information from the American Indian Movement about Leonard Peltier. I have at many times in my political career been allied with the ACLU, and have always supported Pam and Ramona Africa and the MOVE Organization. The American Indian Movement of Colorado, King Downing of the ACLU, and Pam and Ramona Africa of MOVE are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

Mumia Abu Jamal has endorsed the Power to the People Campaign and my Green Party candidacy. According to the organizers, Mumia will transmit a message to all of us participating in the events in question.

Finally, I have appeared on various stages with many Palestinians; I have proudly spoken at rallies organized by Larry Holmes. Debra Sweet with World Can’t Wait was among the very first to my knowledge to organize around impeachment as an imperative and I support hers and all other impeachment groups in their efforts. And finally, I have known Ben Manski for a long time as a socially conscious activist who is also a member of the Green Party. According to the organizers, a Palestinian refugee is slated to speak at the events in question, as well as Larry Holmes, Debra Sweet, and Ben Manski.

Rosa and I have not been given any rational, ideological, or strategically-acceptable reason by the Green Party of Colorado to dissociate ourselves from the movement that this country so desperately needs and that these individuals and organizations participating represent, as we all attempt to hold the Democratic Party accountable for its complicity in all of the crimes of the Bush Administration. Therefore Rosa and I will keep our appointments in Denver and we hope that the members of the Green Party of Colorado will attend our sessions and listen to what we have to say. I have faith that by taking principled stands against war and occupation, human rights abuse, the prison-industrial complex, and in support of freedom for political prisoners, the Green party will emerge stronger.

Cynthia McKinney
Green Party Nominee for President of the United States

Rosa Clemente
Green Party Nominee for Vice President of the United States

Product Obama

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Young Barack“At the time when the American military industrial complex is despised around the world, [Barack Obama] is a front man out of central casting which will buy it more goodwill and new room to maneuver in the first 15 minutes after being sworn in that John McCain could in the next 100 years.”
 
Counterpoint columnist Joe Bageant was given the following essay by an unnamed political consultant:
Life in the Post-political Age.

Much has been written by political pundits in their attempt to explain the unexpected victory of Senator Barack Obama over Senator Hillary Clinton in this year’s Democratic Presidential Primary. When looking at the results of this race, none of the conventional political math that would help one handicap the outcome would make one conclude that Senator Obama would win this contest.

Inside a Democratic Party primary there is no demographic or political reason that a male first term African American senator from Illinois with an unorthodox name should come any where close to beating a white female senator, who happens to be the wife of the last Democratic President whose approval ratings are still above 70% with Democratic voters and who also happened to earn the endorsements of the substantial parts of the Democratic Party establishment.

The conventional analysis focused on the poor quality of the campaign run by Senator Clinton, her vote in support of the Iraq war and her advocacy of the cynical center-right triangulation policies of her husband, which soured her campaign to many primary voters and especially to Democratic Party activists. Senator Obama’s on the other hand was credited with running an innovative and inspiring campaign that excited primary voters and brought many new and especially younger voters into the electoral process.

There is some truth to this analysis, but as a whole it misses the underlying social change in society that had already laid the groundwork for a possible Obama victory. To get a clearer understanding of the results, we must better understand what this social change is and how its impact is far more significant than the dynamics of the two respective campaigns.

The underlying social change that led to the Obama victory is the unprecedented extent to which the narrative of popular consumer culture, and the media that drives it, has become the dominant influence on how Americans think, formulate their ideas and understand the world around them.

The most important result of this process has been the steady and consistent depoliticization of American society, to an extent that we can make the case that we are living at the dawn of the post political age.

The two primary features of the post political age are a politics completely drained of all its contents and ability or willingness to be used as an agent of change in social or economic policy, and its full integrations into the world of American popular, consumer and entertainment culture. To such an extent that there exists today a seamless web between our political, economic, media and consumer cultures wherein the modes and values of one are completely integrated and compatible with the others.

It should not come as a surprise that the dominant ideas and mores of popular culture have become the dominant ideas of our society. Popular culture is the breaker of customs, prejudice, tradition and relevant historical knowledge.

It is a result of this dynamic that the two consistent winners in American politics over the last 30 years have been the cultural left and the economic right. Despite the massive organizing drive of the religious right over the past three decades, they are further away from reversing the cultural liberalization of American society than when they started. On others side of the ledger, organized labor outside of a few urban pockets and industries is no longer a relevant force in American life. The ever greater electoral activism of both of these groups is generally misunderstood as a show of strength; in fact, it is the exact opposite. It is the desperate fight of the losing side of the American economic, cultural and political scene.

In essence the same forces that make it possible for the rapid acceptance of ideas such as gay marriage are the same force which can create a society that will accept massive social inequalities.

In the post political world and the candidates who can best thrive in it have tremendous appeal to the economic elites, a system that does not dwell on issues and will never ask the question, “who has power and why”, but simultaneously creates a social and media environment of stupefying distractions while destroying traditional social mores (under-credited as a source of much social solidarity). This can only benefit their continued rule of that society.

In such a setting our political choices like our consumer choices, regardless of the product, are primarily about what makes us more fulfilled and feel better about ourselves.

Senator Obama’s campaign understood much better the impact of these changes on our electoral system than any of his opponents’ campaigns. In the post political world, the campaign that is less political and less issue-based but is savvier in using new modes of communication technology will be the campaign to win the greatest market share of the electorate. The candidate in this case, Obama, was not a political entity but, in essence a product, an ornament that made his supporters feel better about themselves.

One of the most telling facts about the Obama’s constituency outside of African Americans (whose support needs no explanation) is that it is a coalition of people who need or demand the least amount of social benefit from our government. They are the under politicized younger voters and upper middle class whites. The two groups, coincidently, are the ones most influenced by trends in consumer popular culture and have the greatest of ease using the latest technologies.

In commercial advertising it is the poor commercial that lists the seventeen functions of the product being marketed. The best commercials are based on image associations entirely unrelated to the functions of the actual product. In the post political world, when the same principle is applied to the political realm, it makes complete sense how Barack Obama no longer is a black man with a strange name but the iPod to Hillary Clinton’s cell phone. In the world of toys it is the one that stands out the most is the most marketable.

The reality of the post political period is best highlighted in the failed themes and ideas of Barack Obama’s two primary opponents. The Clinton campaign was based on pushing two concurrent ideas: the inevitability factor of her candidacy and the other was her supposed experience. The only thing inevitable in the post political period is ceaseless change, which she could hardly offer while running against the candidate of “Change”. How valuable of an asset can experience be in a culture where knowledge, wisdom and history are frowned upon?

John Edwards campaign on the other hand was dead on arrival. His theme and emphasis was America’s ever widening class differences, a platform as truthful as it was irrelevant. The use of the word “class” will end any political career in America. That truth violates the primary narrative that our elite use to justify their legitimacy, which is the supposed meritocratic nature of America society. While the post political constituencies have absolutely no interest in class, whose very acknowledgment are the bases of all real politics and whose acknowledgement would only lead to an existential crisis in its ranks. In the post political period the only differences allowed can be in style and modes of consumption.

Given all this as the background, what are we to make of the campaign of the candidate of hope, audacity and change? The answer lies in understanding Senator Obama’s appeal to the brighter sections of the economic and political elite, and more importantly in the lack of any organized opposition against him, of the kind that within a matter of days destroyed Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004.

At the precise moment that the intellectual underpinnings of conservative free market ideas that have dominated politics for the past 30 years are crumbling across the globe. Obama calls for a post ideological and partisan world.

At the time when the American military industrial complex is despised around the world, he is a front man out of central casting which will buy it more goodwill and new room to maneuver in the first 15 minutes after being sworn in that John McCain could in the next 100 years.

His very presence, the color of his skin, the very strangeness of his name is the best guarantee of his betrayal of the expectations of the constituencies that will vote to elect him. Barack Obama is in short order a far more reassuring prospect for the continued dominance of the financial elite than another four years of neo-conservative rule which in an almost historically unique combination of greed, ill will, incompetence and stupidity have brought the country to the edge of disaster.

Audacity yes, change hardly.

Join the Clorox Club!

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Join the Clorox Club and bleach America Green! I wonder if this is now seen as a ‘Green investment’ nowadays? Some Clorox company products do now get the Sierra Club endorsement, that’s for sure. Sierra Club Launches Partnership with Clorox’s new Green Works Line

I’m looking for the Sierra Club to now partner with the National Rifle Association, Smith and Wesson, and the Pentagon to come up with a Child Safe GI Joe National Park Ranger with gun (to protect the park boundaries from rowdy visitors that want to harm Bambi). What about it, Carl Pope (long time head of Sierra Club)? Got a deal in the works yet with these Green friendly folk? Bang-bang.

Seriously though, is partnering with toxic producers really the way to go about trying to save the envionment? You get your Big Mac and your salad both!???

Actually the real result is that your ‘environmental organization’ begins to partner to block government regulation that would outlaw or heavily regulate the production of toxic products. That’s the result of having a Cloroxenvironment Club out there. Just stop sending money to the Sierra Club until it gets its act together? That might be never at this point? They’ve been bought out.

Caucus surge for Obama 2004 speech

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Give Barack Obama a trophy for his speechEverybody who is anybody I know showed up at last Tuesday’s DEM caucuses. I felt so bad for all of them, tuned in, activated, braced to make elections work this time. But to work for whom? Not them. We are indeed lemmings, our legs spinning, our arms waving, our faith unshakable because to not jump off the cliff would be to derail the train without the engineer and be left to organize a can of worms.

The media, the parties, everyone is in election year mode. Get Out the Vote, Be the Change, You Can’t Win if You Don’t Play, the candidates shaking themselves out like Lotto balls coming up the tube. Meanwhile we’ve got our heads down eagerly keeping the turkey cold for whoever gets Bingo. Perhaps our selfless trust in them will be reciprocated by an equal lack of self-interest on their part to help us. Do you think?

My local district caucus on the West Side was positively humming with enthusiasm. It could have been related to people thinking they might get to attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver, or even the State Convention to be held right here. But there also seemed to be an urgency about securing a nomination for Obama instead of for old Hillary.

Out with the old, in with change. Almost no one in my precinct wanted to speak in favor of Hillary, she had supporters but none that dared speak. The posters and endorsements were mostly for Obama, and the enforcement was heavy handed. One woman was told her Clinton posters were not needed in the caucus rooms because the posters there were already 50/50, when clearly they were not.

Another friend of mine in another precinct wanted to make a pitch for Clinton in hope of convincing just one person to tilt her way to reach the minimum required to earn one delegate. Otherwise the six individuals for Clinton would be thrown into the Obama majority. Thus instead of sending one delegate for Clinton against Obama’s seven, Obama would get them all. (It’s complicated the way I can’t explain it, isn’t it?) An Obama disciple approached her to explain that Obama was for uniting the party, not for dividing it, and what my friend was proposing was definitely divisive and not in keeping with the spirit of Obama. Her precinct chairman concurred and my friend was not allowed to speak. There was just that kind of fervor.

I was offered an Obama sticker which I declined. I explained that I wanted to remain undeclared, there were a few of us actually, because I thought we were being given no real alternative, certainly not relative to American war-making. The button giver sympathized with me, and offered instead that she liked the stand Obama had taken on the war in his speech before the Democratic National Convention in 2004. He spoke against the war there, and what he had said afforded her some hope.

I’d have to agree that Obama gave a great speech in ’04. Is that really going to be the basis for selecting him to be president? What has he done since, as a Senator or high-profile contender, all this time? Has he advanced, lobbied, spoken out, championed, appealed, endorsed, raised his voice about anything?!

If Obama’s speech was so convincing, why didn’t Democrats nominate him then and there for their candidate? I agree he was promising then! Now he is a confirmed professional campaigner. Not unlike… Bush! (This thread to be continued…)

What I take to be the lesson of DNC 2004 is to save the decision until all the really impressive orators have spoken, then pick one. Why tie ourselves to a nominee before all the suitors have made their overtures? Especially if we’re going to make our decision based on a speech. Let’s leave our options open. If we’d done that in 2004, we could have had Obama, and none too soon. Let’s do it this year and see who rises to the occasion. At every convention, there’s always a side player at liberty to offer a more interesting sermon.

At the 2006 state convention, soon-to-be-governor Ritter gave the worst speech I’d ever heard. I didn’t even have to close my eyes to wonder if he was a Republican, a Democrat or a Saturn dealer. It was the most bland claptrap, and he’s delivered precisely that in office. The same day, a would-be state representative spoke in amazingly blunt terms and brought down the house. Based on Obama logic, he should have been nominated for governor. I wish he had.

Who’s going to be the Obama of 2008? It wouldn’t have to be an unknown. As I remember, Dennis Kucinich gave an underrated speech at the last convention. Perhaps we should give him a chance to do it again. And he has credentials. Or Al Sharpton, or Jesse Jackson. Give Ron Paul or Ross Perot a turn at the podium as well. Based on one speech we can definitely feel optimism for any such candidacy.

Pastor Billy, there are some real nuts and perverts out in Manitou Springs

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There is a building out there in Manitou Springs that is full of nuts. The building houses the remnants of Pastor Billy Hargis’s ‘Christian Crusade’ , Hargis being a commie-phobic radio evangelist from Texarkana, who lost his ministry when caught screwing with both man and wife in a married couple whose marriage he had just performed! Talking to each other they both discovered that they had both lost their virginity to Billy! Some ministry it certainly was!

Here is how Manitou based Summit Minstries and their ex-Billy Hargis disciple, Pastor David A. Noebel, was described in PublicEye.org back in 1993.

Summit Ministries
Summit Ministries of Manitou Springs, Colorado, is a little-known Religious Right organization whose work is national in scope. It is a 30-year-old Christian organization specializing in educational materials and summer youth retreats. Its president is Rev. David A. Noebel, formerly a prominent preacher in Rev. Billy James Hargis’s Christian Crusade. As early as 1977, Noebel authored The Homosexual Revolution, in which he claims that “homosexuality rapidly is becoming one of America’s most serious social problems.” He has also written several books claiming that rock’n’roll and soul music are communist plots to corrupt US youth. Summit Ministries later published AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome: A Special Report, co-authored by David Noebel, Wayne C. Lutton, and Paul Cameron. For the last several years, virtually every issue of The Journal, Summit Ministries’ monthly newsletter, has contained several anti-homosexual entries. Summit Ministries has just published Noebel’s new book, Understanding the Times: The Story of the Biblical Christian, Marxist/Leninist and Secular Humanist Worldviews.

Noebel’s background with Rev. Billy James Hargis’s Christian Crusade helps to explain the historical friendly relationship between Summit Ministries and the John Birch Society (JBS). Both the Christian Crusade and the John Birch Society represent a political sector known in political science literature as the “old right.” Born out of the conviction that communism was rampant in the United States, both organizations believed that the civil rights movement was manipulated by communists, that the National Council of Churches promoted communism, and that the United Nations was controlled by communists. In 1962, Rev. Billy James Hargis purchased an old resort hotel in Manitou Springs, which was renamed The Summit. The Summit became a retreat and anti-communism summer college.

Summit’s relationship with the John Birch Society is deeper than mere ideological affinity. In fact, in 1983, a donor responding to a John Birch Society fundraising letter sent a check to Robert Welch of JBS, and received a thank-you letter from Welch. The check, however, was made out to Summit Ministries.

Rev. David Noebel was a member of the John Birch Society until at least 1987, and for many years Summit Ministries took out full-page advertisements for its summer youth retreats in Review of the News and American Opinion, two John Birch Society publications.

Summit Ministries is also politically close to Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family. Dr. Dobson, especially since moving to Colorado, leads seminars at Summit Ministries, and his endorsement of Summit’s work was prominent in Summit’s material promoting its 30th anniversary. David Noebel is on the advisory board of Colorado for Family Values.
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to see the full article go to Constructing Homophobia
Colorado’s Right-Wing Attack on Homosexuals

Also check out Summit Ministries itself. And for more about David A. Noebel and his Billy James Hargis connections see wikipedia.

And for more about how the Rightwing preacher was laid low by sexual scandal see the 2004 obituary for him in The Guardian.

Offending the troops

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War crimes in IraqOffending the soldiers: I get into this trouble every time. IF YOU ARE A SOLDIER AND YOU ARE NOT UNEDUCATED OR NOT A MURDERER, and you know it, then neither criticism would apply to you. If you are caught up in our government’s very nasty actions and you are doing all you can not to participate, you know war critics are not addressing you. Does that make sense?

On the other hand, if you feel you’ve no recourse but to do what you’re told, kill babies, mother-raping, father-killing, and those mean nasty terrible things, you’ve got to know this: they couldn’t do it without you.

To be clear, our American wars of aggression (Iraq and Afghanistan included), our illegal occupations, our extra-judicial air strikes, our maltreatment of people, our abandonment of civilized behavior, our use of torture, etc, are WAR CRIMES. They are the uppermost of criminal acts, they are CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. To suggest this is a matter of opinion would be like trying to insinuate that murder is not. Just because you’ve been mislead by the war-monger bandwagon does not excuse what you and it are doing. Wake up and smell the corpses.

If it offends you to be called a murderer even though you work only behind the scenes, or even though you think you’re fighting on the side of good, or even though your definition of “good” is a dead Iraqi, it’s time to stand up and accept the condemnation you have earned. You’re a dumbass dumbfuck dupe doing the bidding of immoral mass-murdering businessmen. You bring dishonor unto everything we used to think made us Americans. You discredit the bright ambitious minds that created our democracy. You tarnish the legacy of those veterans who fought for equality and justice and prosperity. Do you think a failing grade in civics or ethics or religion calls for an attaboy? You deserve consolation without doubt, because your thinking-inability is certainly not your fault, but not an endorsement to put your failed education to work killing and marauding at whim. Put down your gun you big ol’ galloot and figure out an honorable way to earn a living.

If your mutiny would mean that your even-worse behaving comrades-in-murder feel they need to shoot you for breaking rank, well that’s what you and they have coming, isn’t it? Unless YOU can convince them otherwise. Quit looking to antiwar people to fight your battles. We don’t need to go to Iraq or wear your boots to know what you’re doing is immoral. Lucky for you, most of us are forgiving and compassionate. I see the murder of one million Iraqis and think a dressing down is the least you deserve.

Knowing Obama from way back

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Are you, or do you know someone who claims to have been a roommate or classmate of Barack Obama in college? Maybe it’s something about Colorado, but first-person-endorsements of Obama abound here. They’re as ubiquitous as Columbia post grads on chat sites, le cred ne plus ultra -we could add- du jour. This smells like teen spirited campaign strategy urban myth to me. Personal testimonials serve the same purpose as shills lauding the snake oil salesman, they give roots to a newcomer to those in the crowd who hadn’t noticed they rode into town together. Was Obama’s class so populous to yield these disciples now coming out of the woodwork? Were they sent forth to seed all major US cities and states?

Obama’s chances. Maybe the deep voiced revival speaker could get himself elected. What then? What is he promising by way of change? An example not being reserving the right to launch air attacks on Pakistan or on any sovereign people with whom polls show Americans can be led to find fault.

Obama acolytes tell me I must read his book, his Kampf apparently, where he outlines his intentions, or would, if they could be unveiled prematurely. It makes sense of course that you could never be [s]elected by the corporate machine if you are campaigning on a platform of threats to entrenched power. Look at Kucinich or Nader, getting nowhere. What would happen if a candidate should turn coat against the big money behind him? Has it ever happened? The nearest anyone has ever gotten is assassination.

Obama fans think their candidate is so much the real thing that he may indeed be assassinated. Fine. Their perceptive judgement of Obama’s promise will be vindicated if that happens, you can almost see them enshrine I told you sos already. Then what? Who’ll be waiting in the wings as VP that we know we really cannot count on? Joseph Lieberman?

Darfur round and round table discussion

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No imperial intervention on the pretext of DarfurPeople please come prepared to the Darfur round table discussion tomorrow night. The in-house event at the PPJPC is intended to bridge a perceived divide that our organization may be telegraphing regarding non endorsement of the Save Darfur organization and other like efforts. Is the PPJPC for western intervention in Sudan or against, military and/or economic?

I’m hoping a moderator will be able to preempt filibusters by spirited missionaries intent on witnessing with descriptions of Janjaweed atrocities until the rest acquiesce in submission.

Come prepared to be informed, but please do the background research. The discussion time will be limited and will be quite ill-served, I think, with a chorus responding “I didn’t know snake oil was both TASTY and LESS FILLING.”

If you can read about the Darfur Crisis, you can read why it is also considered the Darfur Controversy.

Closed door policy at Senator Allard’s

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Click for more pictures of the PPJPC petition march
This is building security manager Del Suhr blocking our way to Senator Wayne Allard’s office in the Plaza of the Rockies. He told us, in less civil words, what we didn’t understand about Iraq, that we were unpatriotic, that we were Taliban, and he refused to let us pass. In the end Mr. Suhr and his staff permitted two of us to ascend to the Senator’s office under escort.

I didn’t want to argue with the mis-educated man, so I suggested only that he might owe it to everyone, especially the dead, to look into the facts without an O’Reilly topspin. You’re rationalizing illegal war and immoral conduct Mr. Neuhauser and it won’t be enough to say later you didn’t know. Bush is going to hang, as surely as the rest of his cohorts, for the highest crimes against humanity, and you were following his orders, keeping the rails greased.

My friends and I were today trying to present a petition to our senator to urge him to reverse his endorsement of Bush’s torture policy. Torture is universally deplored, even our duplicitous leaders dare not admit they allow it, yet the Torture Bill exclusions and the mounting evidence show otherwise. And while victims continue to suffer at the hands of American torturers, you Mr. Suhr stand guard to hold off their hope of rescue.

When justice comes for those victims I’ll bet you will find playing stupid very humbling.

Kucinich announces he will herd wimpy and prayerful DP Peaceniks back inside church again

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The best candidate who does not represent the Democrats 
 
Dennis Kucinich announced Wednesday that he is again running for president as a supposedly antiwar Democrat within his prowar party. Yawn. This time around, unlike before, one can cut the palpable unenthusiasm of the mascoshist antiwar element of the Democratic Party with a knife.

Rather than inspiring any hopes for leadership change amongst this faithful crowd, the announcement of his candidacy seemed more to have dashed any hope at all. The faithful believers are on to Dennis, it seems, and now know his role in the DP is to be merely that of a DP herd dog serving to keep the flock together. Together to get sheared of the wool over their eyes, we would hope.. lol.

But more likely to again just to get entirely group fucked in the deepness of the dark, depressing night. Or, for those more inclined to visualize romantically in this manner, a faithful flock to get completely reemed (in mass) underneath the light of the full moon…. Oh well, the prose here doesn’t really matter, it is the faith that does, they say.

More seriously now. If Kucinich was sincere about rallying Americans to end the US bipartisan government Iraqi and Afghan war fiascoes, he would run as an independent and not as a Democratic Party perennial loser. In short, he would denounce the Democratic Party as not fit for any patriotic American to participate in. That would be easy to do, too.

Imagine if instead of announcing his Democrratic Party fealty at thsi time, he had instead approached Ralph Nader, Bernie Sanders, Cynthia McKinney and Noam Chomsky, say? Approached them and asked ALL for their endorsements in an independent run for president? Now that would be sincerity, rather than a false and hollow parody of it by going forth as some sort of pretend New Age George McGovern, or New Age Clean Gene pied-piper. Yes, Dennis could push the antiwar cause ahead. Just not by the action he has chosen to undertake.

These are times that test faith, are they not? Sane secular people can watch this contest of liberal vs conservative religious faithful from the side, and place our bets once again on which of these 2 dogs will persevere. Will Hound dog Haggard’s followers at New Life Church stay in that arena the following year in group more cohesive than the Democratic Party antiwar flock will be tempted to continue to be herded, by Pastor Dennis Kucinich? Me? I’m betting that the liberal DP religious faith is much stronger than that of the the RP-worshipping, ‘New Life’ certified, idiot big top tent mob. How ’bout you?

Religion is something else, isn’t it?! I’m thinking about converting to Islam!

Democrats Pelosi and Rangel defend Bush

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Chavez also called Bush a donkeyCan you make the argument that Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel are above all politicians, or diplomats shall we say, who like their political discourse to be civil? Hugo Chavez referring to Bush as a devil who behaves as if the world belongs to him may have been, in their minds, undiplomatic, shall we say?

That sort of logic would have Hans Christian Anderson’s courtiers reluctant to tell the emperor he had no clothes for fear it would be undiplomatic to make the emperor feel naked.

Pelosi resorted to name-calling herself, labeling the several-time democratically elected, survivor or two US coup attempts, liberator of Venezuela’s poor, Mr. Chavez, an “everyday thug.” Considering Chavez rose from poverty himself, Pelosi’s remark comes off bigoted as well.

There’s a simpler explanation. Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel are not what we want them to be. They are not in true opposition to the ruling party. Like their Democratic Party, they are imposters.

House Minority Leader Pelosi may have stood up for the American people once, not once-upon-a-time, but one time, having to do with the election. Charles Rangel I’m sure will champion something one day. But that is all, and it’s sufficient I guess. It gets politicians noticed by the press and gives the party apparent credibility. But, critically, it doesn’t allow a momentum of support to build because it’s only ever one diplomat at a time. When Pelosi speaks out about something, where are the others? When Boxer speaks out, where’s Pelosi? When Murtha speaks out, where are Boxer and Pelosi? Ad dystopium.

Who do you know around you that’s only a single issue person? Activists and scholars and intellectuals seem to be able to advocate for several things at a time. Good leaders certainly do to. So does your neighbor I bet. It’s inadvertent isn’t it? Can you picture an advocate of universal health care saying: oh, never mind about civil liberties? Have you met an antiwar protestor who is not also concerned about immigrant rights? It’s not just that social justice issues are interrelated, they have a common urgency and they affect us all.

Single episode politicians are imposters. They are not advocates for the people, they are but actors who speak the lines given them and no more. Something for the camera please, but do not upset the applecart.

Approach your local candidate, even for the teeniest, least promising office. Ask them to say something of consequence, even just to you. If they belong to a party, they cannot say a thing. That’s what it means to be accepted by the party and to have its endorsement. You can’t speak. And when you get to be House Minority Leader you get to tell others not to speak, even a leader of another nation. In this case the little boy who is saying you people are butt-naked and ugly too.

James Frey wrong guy

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Liar
I’m crossing my fingers that this James Frey guy gets what’s coming to him. James Frey has written a best-selling memoir called A MILLION LITTLE PIECES and thanks entirely to Oprah’s shrewd endorsement, has become an inspiration for a suburban nation in the grip of a drug addiction epidemic. The trouble is that Mr. Frey’s memoir has been largely invented. THE SMOKING GUN went looking for Frey’s police records, as is their thing, and found Vanilla Ice basically.

Oprah holds that her man Frey is still a beacon of light of a bad boy redeemed. I would maintain he is not.

Frey may have thought that he’d covered his bases. He killed off every co-conspirator in his book, he had his real police records, or lack thereof, expunged, and he’s claiming artistic license for whatever discrepancy may be left. Now in spite of what TSG has brought to light, Frey continues to defend his criminal street cred. This is not someone who has redeemed himself.

I don’t have any trouble with the fact that he has slandered real people. While Frey was in reality let off lightly for a drinking offense, he maintains those cops beat him mercilessly à la King, and later one of the cops contracted Frey’s cell mate to deliver a further beating. (Frey was never jailed.)

I don’t care if he’s traded on the memory of a small Michigan town’s high profile teenager-train-wreck tragedy, insinuating himself non-grata into several parents’ recollections of painful loss.

I don’t care that he’s taken a vacuous manuscript, rejected 18 times in its previous incarnation as a novel, and parleyed it into a small fortune and himself into a prominent role as recovery guru.

I don’t care that Jame Frey wasn’t the bad-ass he claimed to be, or thinks he remembers.

Except as it relates to Mr. Frey’s recovery from drug addiction.

The detail to which I attach a great deal of significance is Frey’s recovery, which may or may not be true. He says he did it without Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact he belittles them.

Plenty of addicts recover without the assistance of AA or NA, but the greater majority by far need the help of fellow addicts. And tragically, the chief hurdle to bringing addicts into recovery is every last addict’s misconception that they can do it themselves.

So here you have a Mr. Frey who wants to paint himself as the baddest dealer ever, as the most reprobate junkie ever, who hit bottom like no parent should ever hope to see their child hit bottom, and who then got clean, all by his own self, won Oprah’s book club lottery, the end.

If that’s true, congratulations to him. If it’s not true, what kind of hope is James Frey offering the millions of suffering parents and addicts? That they should count on such unlikely odds as winning the lottery?

NA is not for everyone, but it’s nothing to avoid in any case. Every day millions of Americans get together in ad hoc meetings to fight and claw their way out of addiction. Some need the comfort of believing in a “higher power,” some don’t. Whatever. There’s no administrative cost, there’s no hidden agenda, there’s no proselytizing. The meetings are just people who share a common problem, helping each other to overcome.

Middle America is being overtaken by the drug problems that have long plagued the urban poor. Oprah’s handlers may have been urging her to find a way to address the addiction epidemic and help her audience to navigate the dangerous waters. I hope she has the wisdom to admit she may have chosen the wrong guide.