http://factcheck.org/2009/08/nazi-symbols-at-town-halls-the-real-story/
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Friday, July 24, 2009
How to Win a Culture War
JULY 24, 2009 1:43PM
How to Win a Culture War
Rate: 0
Email saloncom914:http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=267923 -->
God's Politics Blog:
Excerpts: Want to know how to win a culture war? Don’t fight one. The soul of our nation has been marred from a perpetual state of culture war. In an Orwellian twist, each camp relies on conflict with their supposed enemies for the perpetuation of their own existence. The culture warrior’s clout, influence, fundraising, and organizing is based upon real or perceived attacks from the other side. These “threats” and boogeymen are their oxygen, and without them, they die.
Tim Ryan and Rosa DeLauro are wise public servants who are trying to unite us around the new common ground of abortion reduction, a place that people on both sides of the debate can agree to. Helping young people to delay sexual activity, preventing the pregnancies that people don’t want, economically supporting low-income women to give them real choices about having a child, and encouraging adoption all will reduce abortion in America. Who could be against any of that?
We have a great opportunity to advance our shared values and common goals at a crucial moment in our country’s history. Sojourners and I strongly support this good and wise piece of legislation and applaud the creative solutions it offers for real action.
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/07/23/how-to-win-a-culture-war/
How to Win a Culture War
Rate: 0
Email saloncom914:http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=267923 -->
God's Politics Blog:
Excerpts: Want to know how to win a culture war? Don’t fight one. The soul of our nation has been marred from a perpetual state of culture war. In an Orwellian twist, each camp relies on conflict with their supposed enemies for the perpetuation of their own existence. The culture warrior’s clout, influence, fundraising, and organizing is based upon real or perceived attacks from the other side. These “threats” and boogeymen are their oxygen, and without them, they die.
Tim Ryan and Rosa DeLauro are wise public servants who are trying to unite us around the new common ground of abortion reduction, a place that people on both sides of the debate can agree to. Helping young people to delay sexual activity, preventing the pregnancies that people don’t want, economically supporting low-income women to give them real choices about having a child, and encouraging adoption all will reduce abortion in America. Who could be against any of that?
We have a great opportunity to advance our shared values and common goals at a crucial moment in our country’s history. Sojourners and I strongly support this good and wise piece of legislation and applaud the creative solutions it offers for real action.
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/07/23/how-to-win-a-culture-war/
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Golden Rule and Fair Minded Words
The Golden Rule and Fair Minded Words
It is good to have someone remind us.
Why do we write, why do we blog? An audience----an audience for our words, our visions, for our truths, that's all any of us want, is it not? The chance to tell what we feel, what we believe, what reality looks like to us.
Yes, the world is made up of Earth, Pain, Conflict and Death.
Pain reminds us there is life full of conflict. Conflict challenges us to be better than we are. And death, well death gives us the chance to sum up all the good we have done or left and done in life.
It is a painful world. And in this painful world we need people with a good heart and common sense. And because we need people such as this, we need to fight for them, not for their sake, but for ours.
We need the visionaries, religious leaders, statesmen and saints to show us, make us look at that pain, to describe it and give it shape so we can understand. ~Author Unknown
It is good to have someone remind us.
And because of this, I am blogging the Election of 2008. These are my words, my, visions, my truths. I have taken that chance and the opportunity to tell what I feel, what I believe, what my reality looks like. This is my own take on the world. The Political and Religious World.
If you are an American voter and citizen who finally wants to get beyond the hot button battles and solve today’s real problems, Obama is the man to vote for.
Obama once said about his beliefs, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values and ideals that were first instilled in me from my mother, who was, as I have called her in my book, the last of the secular humanists—you know, belief in kindness and empathy and discipline, responsibility—those kinds of values".
His belief is a moderate, intellectual Christianity and I like that, in fact I love that. It is a belief that is courteous and smiling and with no sudden moves, which I mean by that, emotions that are balanced, decent, filled with common sense and reasonable. People such as this, we need to fight for, not for their sake, but for ours.
It is good to have someone remind us.
I believe American Christianity has lost its way, taken a turn down a dark path of meanness and disrespectfulness in its pursuit for righteous, political power. People are forgotten and trampled upon by others who are blinded by political ideology and dogma who are intellectually dishonest and philosophically inconsistent.
How can Christianity survive when the Golden Rule is not practiced and forgotten too?
It is good to have someone remind us.
It is a painful world and in this painful world we need people with a good heart, decency and common sense. We need the visionaries, religious leaders, statesmen and saints to show us, make us look at that pain, to describe it and give it shape so we can understand.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Even after we are reminded, we may resist. The uncomfortable bile of conflict rises within us adding pain. But conflict challenges us to be better than we are. The Golden Rule, an essential belief of our Common Humanity's history challenges us to be better than we are too. The pain of failing the Golden Rule reminds us there is still more to be done in life.
Here before us is a statesman by his action, his courteous and smiling and with no sudden moves, with his deep sense of respectfulness reminds us of using "Fair Minded Words".
It is good to have someone remind us.
In fact, it is necessary, when the world is changing rapidly and the true meaning of Christianity is becoming more distant, losing to disrespectfulness and pettiness. Maintaining balance and perspective with our human emotions is very difficult for many of us. And I believe America having a President-a leader, be a Republican, Democrat, white, or black, who is fair minded, calm, intelligent, respectful, packaging it all up in one word---Balanced, is a good thing. Thank goodness for people like this to help us, the ones that are always searching for some balance and some decency by continually remind us not to give up, to keep trying to do better.
It is good to have someone remind us.
When Americans spiritually thirst for a reawakening of the Golden Rule and the much needed practice of Fair Minded Words it is always a good thing to be reminded. And because we need people such as this, we need to fight for them, not for their sake, but for ours. We may in fact have found such a person.
It is good to have someone remind us.
And so for America's sake and my own, I will take up the challenge, not for a person but an idea, a belief, if you will. The same idea, belief and an inspiration that we all fight, strive and struggle for. When Christianity and all Universal religions live up to the teaching of its founder, it becomes a better world. For thousand of years we are taught by our spiritual institutions decency and respect for one another is well worth the fight, well worth the struggle. This belief is not new but a tradition that has always been the central principle of all world religions. This history and life is well worth living in a the world made up of Earth, Pain, Conflict and Death when we are diligently reminded to use Fair Minded Words and given the chance to mature in spirit within the belief of the Golden Rule.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Imagine a world without the pain and conflict of common humanity striving for and struggling in support of the grandest idea of the Golden Rule. "Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you." It does make us look at the pain, describes it and gives it shape so we can understand. It is a painful world without understanding, without respect, without critical intelligence infused by a sense of human caring and without reason balanced by compassion and empathy. Just imagine a world where the human community has no desire to do better.
It is good to have someone remind us.
That is why I blog, that is why I write, in the process of writing, I remind myself the necessity of "trying", to not to give up on doing better and writing about wanting better for our country. Each day is a new day to try again because I do struggle daily with the challenges of living a life according to the Golden Rule and failing miserable many times over which then presents itself into my own self-imposed conflict and pain. As I live within the knowledge of my one life on this earth followed by a full awareness of death does give me the need to take the chance to tell what I feel, what I believe and what reality looks like to me.
It is good to have someone remind us.
A home for our words, our visions, for our truths, that's all any of us want, is it not? A place to go to deal with life's conflicts and pain when we fail to do better. These are my words, my visions, my truths. This is my own take on the world, as I view it. This is my Place, my Home for my words, visions, truths, pain and conflicts on this painful but awe inspiring earth. This is my one small voice reaching out, to be heard, to be understood, to be known that I was, here.
That's all any of us want and why we blog, is it not? A home, a place, an audience, for each of our one small voice to be heard, to be known that we were, here. To let it be known what we desire for ourselves and our country. To remind and to be reminded what our country stands for, inclusion. Established to be a nation for all people with an ethical code that states one has a right to just treatment, and a responsibility to ensure justice for others.
This Golden Rule echoes throughout the land. If we forget what our country stands for and we loose our possibility of compassion and respect as a nation, we run the risk of loosing our nation. Because of our failures and shortness of memory, we need the visionaries, religious leaders, and statesmen to show us, to remind us of our history, our traditions and our creed as a nation.
To be reminded to use "Fair Minded Words" is a good thing.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Susan Thur
Militant Christianity v The Great Command(The Golden Rule) http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/1556/%22go_and_do_likewise%22%3A_militant_christianity_v_the_great_command
It is good to have someone remind us.
Why do we write, why do we blog? An audience----an audience for our words, our visions, for our truths, that's all any of us want, is it not? The chance to tell what we feel, what we believe, what reality looks like to us.
Yes, the world is made up of Earth, Pain, Conflict and Death.
Pain reminds us there is life full of conflict. Conflict challenges us to be better than we are. And death, well death gives us the chance to sum up all the good we have done or left and done in life.
It is a painful world. And in this painful world we need people with a good heart and common sense. And because we need people such as this, we need to fight for them, not for their sake, but for ours.
We need the visionaries, religious leaders, statesmen and saints to show us, make us look at that pain, to describe it and give it shape so we can understand. ~Author Unknown
It is good to have someone remind us.
And because of this, I am blogging the Election of 2008. These are my words, my, visions, my truths. I have taken that chance and the opportunity to tell what I feel, what I believe, what my reality looks like. This is my own take on the world. The Political and Religious World.
If you are an American voter and citizen who finally wants to get beyond the hot button battles and solve today’s real problems, Obama is the man to vote for.
Obama once said about his beliefs, “I didn’t have an epiphany. What I really did was to take a set of values and ideals that were first instilled in me from my mother, who was, as I have called her in my book, the last of the secular humanists—you know, belief in kindness and empathy and discipline, responsibility—those kinds of values".
His belief is a moderate, intellectual Christianity and I like that, in fact I love that. It is a belief that is courteous and smiling and with no sudden moves, which I mean by that, emotions that are balanced, decent, filled with common sense and reasonable. People such as this, we need to fight for, not for their sake, but for ours.
It is good to have someone remind us.
I believe American Christianity has lost its way, taken a turn down a dark path of meanness and disrespectfulness in its pursuit for righteous, political power. People are forgotten and trampled upon by others who are blinded by political ideology and dogma who are intellectually dishonest and philosophically inconsistent.
How can Christianity survive when the Golden Rule is not practiced and forgotten too?
It is good to have someone remind us.
It is a painful world and in this painful world we need people with a good heart, decency and common sense. We need the visionaries, religious leaders, statesmen and saints to show us, make us look at that pain, to describe it and give it shape so we can understand.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Even after we are reminded, we may resist. The uncomfortable bile of conflict rises within us adding pain. But conflict challenges us to be better than we are. The Golden Rule, an essential belief of our Common Humanity's history challenges us to be better than we are too. The pain of failing the Golden Rule reminds us there is still more to be done in life.
Here before us is a statesman by his action, his courteous and smiling and with no sudden moves, with his deep sense of respectfulness reminds us of using "Fair Minded Words".
It is good to have someone remind us.
In fact, it is necessary, when the world is changing rapidly and the true meaning of Christianity is becoming more distant, losing to disrespectfulness and pettiness. Maintaining balance and perspective with our human emotions is very difficult for many of us. And I believe America having a President-a leader, be a Republican, Democrat, white, or black, who is fair minded, calm, intelligent, respectful, packaging it all up in one word---Balanced, is a good thing. Thank goodness for people like this to help us, the ones that are always searching for some balance and some decency by continually remind us not to give up, to keep trying to do better.
It is good to have someone remind us.
When Americans spiritually thirst for a reawakening of the Golden Rule and the much needed practice of Fair Minded Words it is always a good thing to be reminded. And because we need people such as this, we need to fight for them, not for their sake, but for ours. We may in fact have found such a person.
It is good to have someone remind us.
And so for America's sake and my own, I will take up the challenge, not for a person but an idea, a belief, if you will. The same idea, belief and an inspiration that we all fight, strive and struggle for. When Christianity and all Universal religions live up to the teaching of its founder, it becomes a better world. For thousand of years we are taught by our spiritual institutions decency and respect for one another is well worth the fight, well worth the struggle. This belief is not new but a tradition that has always been the central principle of all world religions. This history and life is well worth living in a the world made up of Earth, Pain, Conflict and Death when we are diligently reminded to use Fair Minded Words and given the chance to mature in spirit within the belief of the Golden Rule.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Imagine a world without the pain and conflict of common humanity striving for and struggling in support of the grandest idea of the Golden Rule. "Do onto others as you would wish them do onto you." It does make us look at the pain, describes it and gives it shape so we can understand. It is a painful world without understanding, without respect, without critical intelligence infused by a sense of human caring and without reason balanced by compassion and empathy. Just imagine a world where the human community has no desire to do better.
It is good to have someone remind us.
That is why I blog, that is why I write, in the process of writing, I remind myself the necessity of "trying", to not to give up on doing better and writing about wanting better for our country. Each day is a new day to try again because I do struggle daily with the challenges of living a life according to the Golden Rule and failing miserable many times over which then presents itself into my own self-imposed conflict and pain. As I live within the knowledge of my one life on this earth followed by a full awareness of death does give me the need to take the chance to tell what I feel, what I believe and what reality looks like to me.
It is good to have someone remind us.
A home for our words, our visions, for our truths, that's all any of us want, is it not? A place to go to deal with life's conflicts and pain when we fail to do better. These are my words, my visions, my truths. This is my own take on the world, as I view it. This is my Place, my Home for my words, visions, truths, pain and conflicts on this painful but awe inspiring earth. This is my one small voice reaching out, to be heard, to be understood, to be known that I was, here.
That's all any of us want and why we blog, is it not? A home, a place, an audience, for each of our one small voice to be heard, to be known that we were, here. To let it be known what we desire for ourselves and our country. To remind and to be reminded what our country stands for, inclusion. Established to be a nation for all people with an ethical code that states one has a right to just treatment, and a responsibility to ensure justice for others.
This Golden Rule echoes throughout the land. If we forget what our country stands for and we loose our possibility of compassion and respect as a nation, we run the risk of loosing our nation. Because of our failures and shortness of memory, we need the visionaries, religious leaders, and statesmen to show us, to remind us of our history, our traditions and our creed as a nation.
To be reminded to use "Fair Minded Words" is a good thing.
It is good to have someone remind us.
Susan Thur
Militant Christianity v The Great Command(The Golden Rule) http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/1556/%22go_and_do_likewise%22%3A_militant_christianity_v_the_great_command
Saturday, June 13, 2009
What Socialism Looks Like
The hot-pink portion of this pie chart is the percentage of listed American business assets that have recently been nationalized by the American government (ie, General Motors). Obama's version of socialism is so sneaky you can hardly see it! (And there is some reason to think this actually overstates the portion of the corporate landscape that's been nationalized, but more on that at the end of the post.*)
There is a serious discussion to be had here, and I think Jon Henke is having it: Socialism, like farenheit, comes in degrees. Sure, a government that nationalizes GM is "more socialist" than one that does not, even if it doesn't mean we're living "under socialism." But differences of degree shouldn't obscure differences of kind, and as Tim Fernholz says, "it's clear that putting the government in charge of private production is not the Obama administration's guiding philosophy." If it were, 99.79% of the American corporate assets that existed at the start of the Obama administration would not remain in private hands. The differences of degree are so small that they aren't worth mentioning. And yet, somehow, they keep getting mentioned.
See Chart:http://digg.com/d1ssBR
There is a serious discussion to be had here, and I think Jon Henke is having it: Socialism, like farenheit, comes in degrees. Sure, a government that nationalizes GM is "more socialist" than one that does not, even if it doesn't mean we're living "under socialism." But differences of degree shouldn't obscure differences of kind, and as Tim Fernholz says, "it's clear that putting the government in charge of private production is not the Obama administration's guiding philosophy." If it were, 99.79% of the American corporate assets that existed at the start of the Obama administration would not remain in private hands. The differences of degree are so small that they aren't worth mentioning. And yet, somehow, they keep getting mentioned.
See Chart:http://digg.com/d1ssBR
Friday, June 12, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
America’s Changing Moral Universe
Excerpt: Put aside that pollsters of various ideological stripes subsequently decided that the exit-poll question was flawed. In 2004, so many on all sides just knew that cultural and moral issues were the wave of the future.
But a funny thing happened on the road to the revival tent. The crash of the economy has concentrated the minds of Americans on other things. Moral conflict just isn’t what it used to be.
We know this thanks to an extremely useful exercise by the Pew Research Center that has not received enough attention. In a survey released in late May, Pew offered respondents the list of issues that appeared on the 2004 exit poll and asked them which one would matter most if they had to vote for president now.
The proportion responding with “moral values” fell by more than half—from 22 percent in the exit poll (and 27 percent in Pew’s own post-2004 election survey) to a mere 10 percent. Concern over the economy and jobs more than doubled, from 20 percent in the 2004 exit poll to 50 percent in the new survey. The other issues that gained substantial ground were health care and education
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090531_americas_changing_moral_universe/
But a funny thing happened on the road to the revival tent. The crash of the economy has concentrated the minds of Americans on other things. Moral conflict just isn’t what it used to be.
We know this thanks to an extremely useful exercise by the Pew Research Center that has not received enough attention. In a survey released in late May, Pew offered respondents the list of issues that appeared on the 2004 exit poll and asked them which one would matter most if they had to vote for president now.
The proportion responding with “moral values” fell by more than half—from 22 percent in the exit poll (and 27 percent in Pew’s own post-2004 election survey) to a mere 10 percent. Concern over the economy and jobs more than doubled, from 20 percent in the 2004 exit poll to 50 percent in the new survey. The other issues that gained substantial ground were health care and education
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090531_americas_changing_moral_universe/
War is Sin by Chris Hedges
Excerpt:
War is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians. Society’s institutions, including our religious institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked. This betrayal is so deep that many never find their way back to faith in the nation or in any god. They nurse a self-destructive anger and resentment, understandable and justified, but also crippling. Ask a combat veteran struggling to piece his or her life together about God and watch the raw vitriol and pain pour out. They have seen into the corrupt heart of America, into the emptiness of its most sacred institutions, into our staggering hypocrisy, and those of us who refuse to heed their words become complicit in the evil they denounce.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090601_war_is_sin/
War is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians. Society’s institutions, including our religious institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked. This betrayal is so deep that many never find their way back to faith in the nation or in any god. They nurse a self-destructive anger and resentment, understandable and justified, but also crippling. Ask a combat veteran struggling to piece his or her life together about God and watch the raw vitriol and pain pour out. They have seen into the corrupt heart of America, into the emptiness of its most sacred institutions, into our staggering hypocrisy, and those of us who refuse to heed their words become complicit in the evil they denounce.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090601_war_is_sin/
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
We Only Waterboard Muslims
Jesse Ventura takes Elizabeth Hasselbeck apart on torture: Why is this dumb bitch still on TV?
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Fox News Boycott » Janeane Garafalo Handles Fox News Ambush
Coming out of Starbucks, minding her own business, Janeane Garafalo was ambushed with with questions about her comments regarding the Tea Party protesters being “racist rednecks.” She handled herself well and turned the table by pointing out some of the offensive signs and asking, several times, “Why were they not protesting for the last 8 yrs?"
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, May 4, 2009
If GOP Abandoned Christian Right, Their Party Would Crumble
Democratic strategist James Carville warned on Monday that if the Republican Party were to abandon its decades-old alliance with the Christian Right, it would only cement major losses in party identification and vote totals for the GOP.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter By Olympia Snowe
Excerpts: Republicans turned a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface, failing to undertake the re-evaluation of our inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled many of the losses we have suffered.
It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of “Survivor” — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three decades no longer felt able to remain in the party
Senator Specter indicated that his decision was based on the political situation in Pennsylvania, where he faced a tough primary battle. In my view, the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate Republican in Pennsylvania is a microcosm of a deeper, more pervasive problem that places our party in jeopardy nationwide.
It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29snowe.html?_r=1
It is true that being a Republican moderate sometimes feels like being a cast member of “Survivor” — you are presented with multiple challenges, and you often get the distinct feeling that you’re no longer welcome in the tribe. But it is truly a dangerous signal that a Republican senator of nearly three decades no longer felt able to remain in the party
Senator Specter indicated that his decision was based on the political situation in Pennsylvania, where he faced a tough primary battle. In my view, the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate Republican in Pennsylvania is a microcosm of a deeper, more pervasive problem that places our party in jeopardy nationwide.
It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29snowe.html?_r=1
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Ironies of 'a Devout Non-Ideologue'
The most intriguing aspect of his presidency has been how he combines intelligence and intellect.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Without Superfund Tax, Stimulus Aids Cleanups
The Superfund program, established nearly 30 years ago to clean up the nation’s most contaminated industrial sites, has been underfinanced since a tax expired in 1995.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Real Criminals; Neither Lynndie England nor the AIG Traders
The intellectual forefathers and mothers of the insane conservative economic policies that have brought us to where we are include Ludwig Von Mises, Freidrich Von Hayeck, Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Tom Freidman, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Ayn Rand. Phil and Wendy Gramm pushed through the Gramm/Leach/Bliley Act [...]
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Faith, Hope and Brain Waves
Research on the neurological basis of religion and the power of spirituality.The enemy is not religion," writes Newberg, "the enemy is anger, hostility, intolerance, separatism, extreme idealism, and prejudicial fear -- be it secular, religious, or political."
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Right On Red/Media Matters/Fox News/Media Bias
Right On Red November 07, 2008 On Thursday, 20 or so fundraisers, grassroots organizers and political strategists met in Virginia to discuss the future of the conservative movement, soon to be in exile from the federal government. Ross Douthat, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of Grand New Party, says a split is emerging in the center-right mediasphere over what to do next.
Excerpts:
sort of their infrastructure building mostly through D.C. think tanks which conservatives had long dominated. And on the liberal side and the progressive side, there wasn't really anything.
BOB GARFIELD: But the right would say that the left has always had that infrastructure, called “the media.” [LAUGHS]
ERIC BOEHLERT: Right, and then that’s certainly been sort of the talking point and the propaganda from the right for almost four decades. But I would just go ask any veterans from the Clinton Administration if they thought for eight years the D.C. press was sort of on their side, as they chased down Whitewater [BOB LAUGHS] and impeachment and Travelgate.
BOB GARFIELD: Yeah.
ERIC BOEHLERT: I mean, they were at war with the press for eight years.
More Excerpts:
BOB GARFIELD: Well, what role do you suppose that they will have in the reconstitution of the conservative movement?
ROSS DOUTHAT: Kind of the same role that you've seen on the left, actually, during the Bush years, whether it’s this leftward turn that MSNBC has taken or the exploding left wing blogosphere - the Netroots, Daily Kos and so on. These are not hard-hitting intellectual places. They are sources of left wing populist anger against the excesses of the Bush Administration.
Talk radio and Fox News and so on will become sort of a focus for rock-ribbed Republican partisan mobilization. You know, the genius of the Obama campaign was that it managed to piggyback on that kind of angry left wing grass roots, but he himself projected a unifying post-partisan image and message to the rest of the country. And that’s what the Republicans will have to do. It’s very hard to pull off, and it’s very easy to see that kind of anger pulling the party downward into a permanent minority status. But it could go either way.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, that’s what I'm so fascinated in is this question of anger pulling the party downward.
ROSS DOUTHAT: There’s definitely a sense in which partisan media creates a sort of cocoon. For years, conservatives always talked about the liberal cocoon and they would say liberals who just read The New York Times and The New Yorker, and so on, never really understood that there was a world beyond those institutions. And so, you have the film critic Pauline Kael’s famous line about, you know, how could Nixon win? I didn't know anybody who voted for him, right?
BOB GARFIELD: Hmm.
ROSS DOUTHAT: But as conservatives have built up their own infrastructure, they've also built up their own cocoon. And you've seen this over the last four to six years, where for a long time, in the midst of the Iraq War, if you turned on Fox News and listened to talk radio, all you heard was that things were going well and the liberal media wouldn't report the good news. That kind of cocooning, I think, is usually the source of political defeat.
BOB GARFIELD: Ross, thank you very much for joining us.
ROSS DOUTHAT: Hey, it was a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.
BOB GARFIELD: Ross Douthat is a senior editor at The Atlantic and coauthor of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2008/11/07/06
Comment by Susanthur:
I enjoyed this article because it explained and cleared up some things for me. I live in Louisiana, the deep, deep south and just about everyone is Republican. After 5 years of Political Study, I found myself voting Democrat in this election on the anti-war issue after my husband's many Military deployments. No one here can understand my position and some are very angry because of my vote. I hear from so many that I do not know what is going on and my vote is very wrong and very, very mistaken. These statements are from people that are big Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Hannity fans. I on the other hand get my info from various locations. I love Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers, Gwen Ifill/Washington Week, Meet the Press,McClatchy Newpaper, New York Times, Times Picayune, Time and US News Report Magazine,FactCheck.com, American Prospect, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington Post---I could go on and on. I seem to not get enough info -not enough hours in the day.
So, this concept of building up a sort of Cocoon was fascinating.
But my question is ---who is in the cocoon?
Me or everyone else here in Louisiana? And if I am in my own self made Infastructure/Cocoon/Bubble and really do not know anything about what is really going on ---where do I go for some truth?
I really am beginning to believe---NO ONE really knows anything what is really going on.
I did see trust was a very big issue for me these past few years. I was fed-up with Bush and Cheney and I had no trust for the people that was in power.
I like what I see in Obama--his decency, the calm and adult behavior, his respectful attitude. Some of my trust is back even though I know all politicians lie. As a matter of fact, if you are human--you lie. All humans and governments, lie. Not a judgment ---just a basic fact. And because of this basic fact, I will keep my Independent Voting Status.
I do know one thing for sure as of right now.
I have hope for America again and I am happy. I would never want to go back to what we had the last eight years. The last five for me as a military family member was pure---HELL.
Excerpts:
sort of their infrastructure building mostly through D.C. think tanks which conservatives had long dominated. And on the liberal side and the progressive side, there wasn't really anything.
BOB GARFIELD: But the right would say that the left has always had that infrastructure, called “the media.” [LAUGHS]
ERIC BOEHLERT: Right, and then that’s certainly been sort of the talking point and the propaganda from the right for almost four decades. But I would just go ask any veterans from the Clinton Administration if they thought for eight years the D.C. press was sort of on their side, as they chased down Whitewater [BOB LAUGHS] and impeachment and Travelgate.
BOB GARFIELD: Yeah.
ERIC BOEHLERT: I mean, they were at war with the press for eight years.
More Excerpts:
BOB GARFIELD: Well, what role do you suppose that they will have in the reconstitution of the conservative movement?
ROSS DOUTHAT: Kind of the same role that you've seen on the left, actually, during the Bush years, whether it’s this leftward turn that MSNBC has taken or the exploding left wing blogosphere - the Netroots, Daily Kos and so on. These are not hard-hitting intellectual places. They are sources of left wing populist anger against the excesses of the Bush Administration.
Talk radio and Fox News and so on will become sort of a focus for rock-ribbed Republican partisan mobilization. You know, the genius of the Obama campaign was that it managed to piggyback on that kind of angry left wing grass roots, but he himself projected a unifying post-partisan image and message to the rest of the country. And that’s what the Republicans will have to do. It’s very hard to pull off, and it’s very easy to see that kind of anger pulling the party downward into a permanent minority status. But it could go either way.
BOB GARFIELD: Well, that’s what I'm so fascinated in is this question of anger pulling the party downward.
ROSS DOUTHAT: There’s definitely a sense in which partisan media creates a sort of cocoon. For years, conservatives always talked about the liberal cocoon and they would say liberals who just read The New York Times and The New Yorker, and so on, never really understood that there was a world beyond those institutions. And so, you have the film critic Pauline Kael’s famous line about, you know, how could Nixon win? I didn't know anybody who voted for him, right?
BOB GARFIELD: Hmm.
ROSS DOUTHAT: But as conservatives have built up their own infrastructure, they've also built up their own cocoon. And you've seen this over the last four to six years, where for a long time, in the midst of the Iraq War, if you turned on Fox News and listened to talk radio, all you heard was that things were going well and the liberal media wouldn't report the good news. That kind of cocooning, I think, is usually the source of political defeat.
BOB GARFIELD: Ross, thank you very much for joining us.
ROSS DOUTHAT: Hey, it was a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.
BOB GARFIELD: Ross Douthat is a senior editor at The Atlantic and coauthor of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.
http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2008/11/07/06
Comment by Susanthur:
I enjoyed this article because it explained and cleared up some things for me. I live in Louisiana, the deep, deep south and just about everyone is Republican. After 5 years of Political Study, I found myself voting Democrat in this election on the anti-war issue after my husband's many Military deployments. No one here can understand my position and some are very angry because of my vote. I hear from so many that I do not know what is going on and my vote is very wrong and very, very mistaken. These statements are from people that are big Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Hannity fans. I on the other hand get my info from various locations. I love Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers, Gwen Ifill/Washington Week, Meet the Press,McClatchy Newpaper, New York Times, Times Picayune, Time and US News Report Magazine,FactCheck.com, American Prospect, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington Post---I could go on and on. I seem to not get enough info -not enough hours in the day.
So, this concept of building up a sort of Cocoon was fascinating.
But my question is ---who is in the cocoon?
Me or everyone else here in Louisiana? And if I am in my own self made Infastructure/Cocoon/Bubble and really do not know anything about what is really going on ---where do I go for some truth?
I really am beginning to believe---NO ONE really knows anything what is really going on.
I did see trust was a very big issue for me these past few years. I was fed-up with Bush and Cheney and I had no trust for the people that was in power.
I like what I see in Obama--his decency, the calm and adult behavior, his respectful attitude. Some of my trust is back even though I know all politicians lie. As a matter of fact, if you are human--you lie. All humans and governments, lie. Not a judgment ---just a basic fact. And because of this basic fact, I will keep my Independent Voting Status.
I do know one thing for sure as of right now.
I have hope for America again and I am happy. I would never want to go back to what we had the last eight years. The last five for me as a military family member was pure---HELL.
Politics and Good Friday
Excerpt: But the last thing I want to do is to fight the "Christian Right" with a "Christian Left" that equally seeks to dress up it secular preferences in religious garb and claim the Kingdom for itself. Where does that leave this Christian? Well, for one thing, it makes me strongly support the separation of church and state on religious grounds, which used to be a pretty common attitude among Protestants in this country. And it also tends to make me a "liberal" in the American meaning of that word, if only because political principles like diversity or equality should come naturally for Christians, and also because "conservatism" has too often involved the tendency to semi-divinize too many things of this world, from race, class and country to The Market. That may just be a prejudice, and I may be wrong about all sorts of individual political judgments I make, just like anyone else. That's why we have political debate and political parties and elections. But please don't tell me that God demands that I vote for your candidate or support your "Christian" political cause. Unless you are willing to claim the role of Prophet, with the spiritual dangers that involves, you shouldn't even go there. If these ruminations offend any readers, or seem a ridiculous extrapolation from a meditation of the crucifixion or Good Friday, I apologize. But when I survey the wondrous cross, I see a world that has killed the living Word, and does so every day, and that can only be redeemed spiritually, not by those carrying crosses who confuse Christ's resurrection with the appropriation of divine power to their own earthly causes, however well-meaning. And this Holy Week is as good a time as any for Christians active in politics to seriously reflect on how Christ seeks to shapes our activism with His loving hand--even as we nail it to a cross. http://blog.beliefnet.com/progressiverevival/2009/04/politics-and-good-friday.html
The Tensions between Politics and Religion?
The ordinary resources of empirical observation and ordinary human knowledge give us no warrant for supposing that all good things are reconcilable with each other.--Isaiah Berlin
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/linker/archive/2009/04/12/all-good-things.aspx
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/linker/archive/2009/04/12/all-good-things.aspx
Rush Builds A Revolution
Thank You,Comrade Rush!
How Rush Limbaugh and other right wingers are building socialism in America
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/14/AR2009041402556.html?wpisrc=newsletter
How Rush Limbaugh and other right wingers are building socialism in America
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/14/AR2009041402556.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Palin's New Disaster - The Daily Beast
The governor is reeling after nominating for attorney general a man who allegedly defended the right of men to rape their wives. Now, Max Blumenthal reports, she may dump him to save herself.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
At What Point Did Republicans Become the Party of Hysterics?
Looking around the wingnutosphere today, I can't help but notice that it's SUCH A SCARY TERRIFYING WORLD.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Naomi Klein Interview | The Progressive
Naomi Klein InterviewBy Matthew Rothschild, February 2009 Issue“We don’t have a right to be disappointed” by Obama, says the author of The Shock Doctrine.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Friday, April 3, 2009
Rumsfeld's Dr. Strangelove
Excerpts: Committee voted to repeal a 10-year ban on the research and development of "low-yield" nuclear weapons—defined as nukes having an explosive power smaller than 5 kilotons. (The House committee will take up the measure this week.) The Bush administration has lobbied heavily for the repeal. Democrats oppose the idea on the grounds that "mini-nukes"—by blurring the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons—make nuclear war more thinkable and, therefore, in the minds of some, more doable.
Some in the Bush administration are living proof of this objection. They want to demystify nuclear weapons, strip away the taboo against their use, and insinuate them into the arsenal of U.S. war-fighting tools. A key figure in this effort is Keith Payne.
Note the phrasing. It's startling enough that Payne suggests attacking (even non-nuclear) mobile missiles with nukes. But he goes further, suggesting that we attack whole "areas" where mobile missiles are merely "suspected" to be deployed. And he suggests attacking these with "multiple" nuclear weapons. Payne also argues that nuclear weapons might be needed to destroy "deeply buried facilities … such as underground biological weapons facilities." He leaves unanswered why simply disabling such a facility—which he admits can be done with conventional weapons—wouldn't be good enough. He then says the need to destroy these sorts of targets means we cannot afford to make deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal but should instead continue to build new types of nuclear weapons.
http://www.slate.com/id/2082846/
Some in the Bush administration are living proof of this objection. They want to demystify nuclear weapons, strip away the taboo against their use, and insinuate them into the arsenal of U.S. war-fighting tools. A key figure in this effort is Keith Payne.
Note the phrasing. It's startling enough that Payne suggests attacking (even non-nuclear) mobile missiles with nukes. But he goes further, suggesting that we attack whole "areas" where mobile missiles are merely "suspected" to be deployed. And he suggests attacking these with "multiple" nuclear weapons. Payne also argues that nuclear weapons might be needed to destroy "deeply buried facilities … such as underground biological weapons facilities." He leaves unanswered why simply disabling such a facility—which he admits can be done with conventional weapons—wouldn't be good enough. He then says the need to destroy these sorts of targets means we cannot afford to make deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal but should instead continue to build new types of nuclear weapons.
http://www.slate.com/id/2082846/
The Big Takeover: we're officially, royally screwed
The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
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