“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” “Where is our honor? Where is our valor? Where is our sacrifice?” —Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), leading opposition to Veterans Jobs Corps Act “I care deeply about the...
Politics/Economy
Democrats Grow a Backbone
John Kerry, Deval Patrick, and Other DNC Highlights httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVxRmNO6Qs0 * My message is this—it is time for Democrats to grow a backbone and stand up for what we believe. Quit waiting—quit waiting, quit waiting for pundits or polls or super...
Forward: Four More Years for Mr. President
“When you pick up that ballot to vote, you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation.” * “. . . the election four years ago wasn’t about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens, you were the change. You’re the reason there’s a little girl with a heart...
The Big Hug
Clinton Wows Dems, Urges 2nd Term for Obama * In Tampa, the Republican argument against the president’s reelection . . . went something like this: “We left him a total mess. He hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.” Listen to me now. No...
Hurricane Isaac and Tampa’s Blizzard of Lies
What Would Romney-Ryan Mean for FEMA and Infrastructure? [ cross-posted at DailyKos ] * “One of the themes of the Tampa convention will be the failure of government, and the prosperity that will result if it is cut to ribbons. But in a different corner of the...
Tom Hayden, SDS and SNCC Alums:
Happy 50th, Port Huron Statement!
SDS National Council Meeting, September 1963. Tom Hayden stands at far left. [Photo by C. Clark Kissinger] * “We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit. . . . First,...
Todd Gitlin on Port Huron Statement’s 50th Anniversary
Early ’60s idealism: The mimeographed mission statement of a new generation [ Part 1 of a 2-part series | also @ DailyKos ] “The genius of the Port Huron Statement, as it was structured, was placing its declaration of values up front. The movement would not be guided...
RFK, MLK: “This mindless menace of violence in America”
“Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit [of hatred and revenge] flourish any longer in our land.” —Robert F. Kennedy, April 5, 1968 * On the day after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., then senator...
4/4, 44 Years Ago . . .
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” —Aeschylus * It was the night of April 4, 1968, when word spread that the Rev. Martin Luther King...
Framing the Case for Infrastructure Investment, Taxing the Rich
Attn.: Pro-Infrastructure Activists and Democratic Strategists: In a Feb. 4 letter to the editor of the New York Times, Rick Stone of Madison, Wisc., makes a point that more of us should heed: If the wealthy knew with certainty that their increased taxes would make...
“There Is a Creative Force in This Universe”
The Poor People’s Campaign, 40 Years before Occupy Wall Street “Oh America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes. . . . God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth, while others...
How the World Has—and Has Not—Changed in 50 Years
* Portraits of Courage, Struggle, and Defiance This is the mug shot of Joan Trumpauer, a 19-year-old Duke University student and SNCC member who was arrested by the Jackson, Mississippi, police with eight other activists as they arrived on a train from New Orleans to...
As We Enter 2012, Best Wishes to All
May the new year bring you all the good things you wish for. We’ll be brief with our greetings and good wishes, as last night’s champagne slowly wears off, and as there’s some house-cleaning to do before guests arrive for the New Year’s Day dinner . . . For all our...
How Many U.S. Soldiers Were Wounded in Iraq?
500,000 vets may suffer from PTSD, depression, or traumatic brain injury Dan Froomkin, senior Washington correspondent for Huffington Post, reports at Nieman Watchdog that the Pentagon’s figure of 32,226 wounded seriously undercounts the true casualty rate. Possibly...
Eisenhower on Military Hyperpower and Dictatorship
The “Crushing Weight of Military Power” “Any person who doesn’t clearly understand that national security and national solvency are mutually dependent and that permanent maintenance of a crushing weight of military power would eventually produce dictatorship should...
“We Cannot Fail to Try”
A Break from “Hell No You Can’t” ”We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us through that darkness to a safe and sane future.” —John F. Kennedy, July 15, 1960 * Every year about this time we set aside our JFK assassination...
Today. Now.
“We Want Something Different”
Yearning for a New Kind of Society The ever-sharp Matt Taibbi has written incisively, in sometimes R-rated language, about Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, and other Wall Street investment banks—who can forget his description of Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped...
NYPD Occupies Zuccotti Park; OWS Evicted in Night Raid
[ see livestreaming via GlobalRevolution ] photographs © Levees Not War 2011 * “What are their [NYPD’s] demands?” asked social historian Patrick Bruner. “They have not articulated any platform. How do they expect to be taken seriously?” “I suppose they have a...
As “End” of Iraq War Is Announced, U.S. Digs In, Warns Iran
* [ cross-posted @ Daily Kos ] * “In August [2002] a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek: ‘Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.’ ” —Paul Krugman, “Things to Come,” March 18, 2003 * Where’s That “Mission Accomplished”...