Internet muse.
Daring, bold, never sold.
My daily weblog of politics, humor, philosophy...and a constant and nagging reminder of the existence of universal love....
Today, hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered in Washington to express their displeasure with the current administration, it's policies in Iraq and the horrible effect those policies are having on people across America....Aldon says that we'll hear soundbytes about the March, but they will not reflect what is really happening out there in D.C. and on other American street corners.
It wasn't just the national politics that united us. Several of us talked about the importance of races further down the ticket, such as Melissa Berger's campaign for House of Delegates in Maryland. We talked about the importance of reaching out to people in rural America such as Rob at turningblue has been doing in Georgia.There were 100,000 people who protested the war in D.C. yesterday...and there were a couple hundred anti-peace types who were apparently unaware that there already was no peace in Iraq...
At the end of the day, I spoke with Kim who is up in Burlington and about the importance of campaigns around the country. I write this post sitting in Hypatia's kitchen as numerous bloggers eat, laugh and take pictures.
The way we are going to take this country back is through the friendships that we all share on this blog, when we get together for fun and when we work together on campaigns.
Senate sources tell TIME that the Captain has also reported his charges to three senior Republican senators: Majority Leader Bill Frist, Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner and John McCain, a former torture victim in Vietnam. A Senate Republican staffer familiar with both the Captain and his allegations told TIME he appeared "extremely credible."..The new allegations [Human Rigts Watch] center around systematic abuse of Iraqi detainees by men of the 82nd Airborne at Camp Mercury, a forward operating base located near Fallujah, the scene of a major uprising against the U.S. occupation in April 2004.At Think Progress:
On July 27, the same month the Captain came forward, Sen. Frist single-handedly derailed a bipartisan effort — led by Sen. McCain — to clarify rules for the treatment of enemy prisoners at U.S. prison camps. In what news reports at the time described as an “unusual move,” Frist “simply pulled the bill from consideration” before it could be debated.A suggestion is made that Bill Frist should "come clean: Was his office told of the “systematic abuse” in the 82nd Airborne before he torpedoed the new detainee laws?"
I will be the first to say that adults in our society need to take responsibility for themselves if they possibly can. But until we come to a real understanding of the structural problems in our economy and society that are getting in our way, we will continue to legislate by bumper stickers and slogans. We need to have an honest national conversation, and an honest conversation in every community, about what is really going on, why we face the unacceptable level of poverty and near-poverty, and what we are going to do about it.
John Kerry and John Edwards ran for office together and they lost together, and they both gave major speeches about Katrina this week, but there the similarity ends. The two men might as well live in different worlds.He goes on to explain how he believes the Kerry-Edwards contrast is characteristic of the argument that now causes division within the Democratic Party.
On one side are those who believe that the party's essential problem is with its political style. On the other side are those who believe that the Democratic defeats flow from policy problems, not from campaign style or message framing. They don't believe that Democrats can win wrapped in their own rage, or kowtowing endlessly to their psychologically aggrieved donor base. For them, the crucial challenge is to come up with policies more in tune with voters...Kerry speaks for the first group, which believes in more partisanship, and Edwards for the second, which believes in less.Mr. Brooks does not believe the Democratic party will snap back to the centrism of Bill Clinton, and neither do I. If Democrats are going to come back and succeed, they need to do it with a leader who is not a Bill Clinton-clone. Clinton did an excellent job as President in his time, but that time will have been "eight years gone" by the next Presidential election. I think most people would agree with me when I say that the world has drastically changed since President Clinton presided over this nation.
John Edwards's speech had a different feel. Edwards took some hard shots at Bush, some of them deserved, but having left Washington after the election, Edwards is not so obsessed with power struggles. In his talk he roamed outward and spoke about the complexities of actual life.Democrats need a liberal populist with solid and innovative ideas; who is not afraid to be himself (or herself); an eloquent-yet-straight-shooting communicator; someone who will stick by his (or her) own convictions without hesitation or equivocation. If you ask me, that leader is John Edwards. When he says he believes in one America for all of us, I believe him because I can hear it in his tone and in his ideas. I think he's a natural. I'll bet that he'll convince many others as days go on.
The Democrats are suffering from a lack of imagination. Nothing more. They way to win the hearts and minds of Americans is to buck the status quo and start thinking outside the box. I think Edwards has the best potential to be the candidate who comes closest to that (while also being realistcally electable). I truly get the sense from him that he actually cares about the issue of poverty and it's effects and does not seem to be simply playing lip service to the notion of helping communities change.
What will Edwards bring? Edwards will bring the progressive ideology to heal the nations wounds. He has liberalism diplomatic skills that would enhance our standing in the world. He would appoint competent Secretary of Defense that would end the War in Iraq. We would finally see a domestic approach aimed at reducing the levels of poverty, protecting minority rights, expanding healthcare, more funding for education, reform Social Security, ending tax and corporate loopholes benefitting the rich, more jobs, and a national security aimed at protecting it’s citizens. He would work to unite the country and end the constant bickering between our nations top parties.
"When bloggers decide that something matters, they chomp down hard and refuse to let go. They're the true pit bulls of reporting. The only way to get them off a story is to cut off their heads (and even then you'll need to pry their jaws open). They almost all work alone, but, ironically, it's their collective effort that makes them so effective. They share their work freely, feed off one another's work, argue with each other, and add to the story dialectically. All of which has made the blogosphere the most vital news source in our country -- and led me to take a flying leap into it with The Huffington Post."
- - Arianna Huffington in an interview with Wired News
_________
Iraq is only going to get worse. There is little danger in calling for a troop withdrawl upon approval of the Iraqi Constitution. Most Americans don't expect us to hold Iraq's hand for the long-term. It's their country, they're going to have to survive on their own. While "we broke it, we fix it" has its moral attractiveness, fact is we can't fix it. Only Iraq can, and we must let them do so..We also need the money and troops to help rebuild the gulf coast and prepare for the next big disaster. Katrina was definitely not the last we'll face.Serious Democrats cannot take a muddled approach to Iraq. "Staying the course" is a phrase that has become meaningless to Americans, who are not stupid and can see that "the course" has produced disastrous results, and we have not learned from these mistakes because the president won't admit he made any. Polls show that Americans are afraid and non-trusting on the issue of this war. They need to hear that there is, indeed, a timetable for bringing our troops back. More than that, Americans are caring people, and they know we've gone in and bombed the hell out of Iraq - and we aren't the kind of society that would run from an obligation to assist in rebuilding the country. Like it or not, Bush committed us to this mess and we will never regain any international respect if we break a nation and fail to assist in fixing a new infrastructure.
The window of opportunity is not closed. Most Democrats can support a pull-out now and escape appearances of pandering (especially with Katrina as cover). But if they wait until next year as Iraq burns hotter and public support for the war falls further, and suddenly announce a big turnabout on the war, they will be every bit the panderers they appear to be. And if they continue supporting the war, they'll simply be supporting a failed adventure with no hope of success..In other words, Democrats can still get ahead of the issue, or they'll be on the wrong side of history next year. But that window of opportunity is closing fast.Now is the time. Now. Now. Now. Before anti-war protestors clash with pro-war supporters. Before things in Iraq get worse. Before FOX News and National Review morph the public's opinion of you into silent supporters of "the course" and we send more soldiers to die. Americans are intelligent and intuitive people. Trust them. They'll trust you if you do.
"The Dims will raise a great cry against this in an attempt to style themselves defenders of liberty."I can just hear Gore Vidal saying, "I told you so." We cannot allow the Bush administration to turn us into a banana republic with a wealth-filthy class on one side of a divide, a deep canyon in between, and the rest of us on the other side - with our own military policing our side. That's a sickening thought.
- Freeper quote, exposing the fear that surrounds the Bush administration's revisiting of the Posse Comitatus Act.
"Americans need to rethink how to protect the country curtailing the rights and the privileges of the free society that we defend."
- Gore Vidal
"I would like to note that the current economic expansion is now entering its seventh year. That makes it already a long upswing by historical standards. And yet, looking ahead, the prospects for sustaining the expansion are quite favorable."Those were the days.
- Alan Greenspan, March 20, 1997