Former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, once said something along these lines:
There are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.
Whatever anyone might think about Rumsfeld, that is actually a very smart statement and something that should be held in mind. For, indeed, there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. That is, there are things that we know that we know. There are things that we know we do not know. And there are things that we do not know that we do not know.
In Part 3 Cohen talked about the struggle for power and direction within the Democratic Party from the days of the Viet Nam War to the present, and wound up with "Frankly... I would love to see a primary challenge to Obama when he's up for re-election... Because unless you build a base through elections and then you hold the officials accountable, then you'll never get anywhere."
Here in the conclusion of the interview Cohen expands on those ideas and fills in some of the outlines to draw a rough set of guidelines or roadmap of how to get from where things stand now with the Democrats as out and out corporatists to a world of the kind of progressive populism they have been well known for at various points in history, and how it is going to take a no more Mr. Nice Guy approach from progressives and a lot of very hardnosed and fearless aggressiveness, of the kind that I think Muhammad Ali meant when he noted so many years ago "He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."
(HERE WE GO! Good luck everyone... - promoted by Maryscott O'Connor)
As usual, winners pick in order -- 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters. You'd think the final score would take precedence, but when you REALLY think about it... it's just a damned luck of the draw thing anyway, so why should the person who wins the final quarter numbers get first pick of the prizes?
ACTUALLY... maybe it should be even MORE random than that. Maybe we should do another sort of thing to figure out who gets t pick in what order?
Can anyone come up with a good, totally unfair and random way to do that?
And the National Rifle Association says, "Guns don't kill people, people do,"
but I think the gun helps, you know? I think it helps.
I just think just standing there going, "Bang!"
That's not going to kill too many people, is it?
First and foremost, I'm a feminist.
And basically that stems from a strong belief
that all people and creatures
deserve equal opportunity, rights and respect.
One of my favorite things about the Oscar nominations is the new list of documentaries to see, on this list this year is Food INC.
Watching Oprah interview Michael Pollan, http://www.michaelpollan.com/ the other day talking about the Oscar nominated documentary Food INC. which he narrated, I was so intrigued I ordered the movie and watched it today.
For the sake of you and your families health, for the sake of the health of the planet, for the sake of the soul of the human race please I beg you to watch this documentary. You can get it through amazon for 10 bucks here: http://www.amazon.com/Food-Inc...
It is priceless in terms of what you get and you can pass it on to everyone you know. Yes it is that important!
You know how you get little snippets of what is going on and you think you know but this documentary pulls it all together starting with the seed all the way to the plate and the grave.
It is gripping and had me shaking just like you do when you are cold. I kid you not this film of where we are is like a cold splash of reality. The bottom line message is we vote for this every time we buy something to eat. If everyone saw this movie and we changed our buying habits the change would be powerful and swift.
Enough about the movie you just have to see it and get back to me.
More about this amazing man Michael Pollan after the jump....... talk about heroes this guy is way up there on the list!
Over at Mindfully.org you can find hundreds of big and small literary and informational treasures for those interested in peering through the veils of darkness that the media does it's best to pull over our eyes with all of their well practiced smoke and mirrors.
One such is in the Political/Social category. An article titled Beyond Voting about the limits of electoral politics, that is particularly relevant this year.
Here's an excerpt, but the entire thing is worth a close read, and some intense discussion or at least much thought, imo...
Roughly speaking we can distinguish five degrees of "government":
The present society oscillates between (4) and (5), i.e. between overt minority rule and covert minority rule camouflaged by a facade of token democracy. A liberated society would eliminate (4) and (5) and would progressively reduce the need for (2) and (3). . . .
...
In representative democracy people abdicate their power to elected officials. The candidates' stated policies are limited to a few vague generalities, and once they are elected there is little control over their actual decisions on hundreds of issues - apart from the feeble threat of changing one's vote, a few years later, to some equally uncontrollable rival politician.
Healthcare is a basic human right. The current healthcare system in America is dysfunctional and expensive. The bill that will pass in DC, eventually, will at best point in the direction of the need to make further changes, but most probably it will be the last time healthcare is tackled at the national level for quite a while.
We know that a Single Payer system is by far the best because it pays for itself by cutting down administrative costs to about 3%. And we understand that by allowing a government run insurance company to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies the cost of medicines will be reduced dramatically. In California these two items account for about 50% of all costs.
Single Payer Senate Bill 810 has a chance of becoming a reality in the most populous State. It is being discussed in the California Assembly as we speak.
When this happens other states may follow. And then we will all have healthcare at reasonable costs while maintaining the same quality of a privately run healthcare provider system paid by health insurance managed by the government.
Most Americans support this once they understand how it works.
Below I explain how you can help make SB 810 a reality and prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths.
.... and TV star Howard Wolowitz from CBS's "The Big Bang Theory" (as portrayed by Simon Helberg).
Whatever your viewing habits: why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
She is an eloquent speaker, an expressive author. Elizabeth Edwards is effervescent, effusive, and has an excellent mind. She understands profound policy issues as easily as she prepares a sandwich. Her memoir appeared on The New York Times bestseller list. Few think of Elizabeth Edwards as every woman. Other daughters of Eve might say Edwards is exceptional; surely, she is not as I am. Yet, life experiences might have taught Elizabeth Edwards otherwise. Just as other ladies, she is brilliant, beautiful, and not nearly equal to a man.
WASHINGTON - The military's top uniformed officer on Tuesday made an impassioned plea for allowing gays to serve openly in uniform, telling a Senate panel it was a matter of integrity and that it is wrong to force people to "lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens."
The comments by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, set the stage for the Defense Department's yearlong study into how the ban can be repealed without causing a major upheaval in the military.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing with Mullen before the Armed Services Committee, announced plans to loosen enforcement rules involving the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that has been in effect since 1993.
President Barack Obama has called for a repeal of the policy, although he did little in his first year in office to advance that goal. If he succeeds, it would mark the biggest shake up to military personnel policies since President Harry S. Truman's 1948 executive order integrating the services.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have a longstanding fear of both Nazis and Zombies. This being the case, I cannot even begin to describe my joy in discovering Nazi-Zombies! (Or should the term be Zombie-Nazis?) Either way, they've arrived and not a moment too soon.
Glad that's settled. But for now - and with a salute to the late Howard Zinn - why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
Whether you need to brighten your day or just plain kick it into whimpering submission, The People's Republic of Moronia is guaranteed to do the job.
This is my latest probably hopeless effort to find relevance in a world that refuses to cooperate. Unlike other similar sites, items on Moronia are all true (to the best of my ability to determine) and the headlines always fairly reflect the content.
Despite this, you will often be sure that these little glimpses of humans being as human as they ever get are from the Onion. No, they aren't. As Lily Tomlin has observed, "No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up."
If it's Wednesday, it must be time for another installment of puzzled's depressing Questions of the Day.
I got a call a couple of days ago, letting me know that my sister's mother had died.
Sounds odd, hmm? But I come from a very odd family. She was my dad's first wife, and my half-sister's mother. She and I never even met until after I had become a mom, so she wasn't my stepmother-just my dad's first wife. And my friend.
We became good friends, even though we lived practically as far apart as two people could be, while still living in the United States. She and her daughter were estranged, and I think I filled the role of substitute daughter for her, and she of friend and confidante to me.
But I have no say in her funeral arrangements or the disposition of her possessions, even though I know that somewhere among them is a partially finished quilt she was making for me, embellished with pictures of my family.
I'm a supporter of gay rights.
And not a closet supporter either.
From the time I was a kid, I have never
been able to understand
attacks upon the gay community.
There are so many qualities that
make up a human being...
By the time I get through with all the things
that I really admire about people,
what they do with their private parts is probably
so low on the list that it is irrelevant.
(UPDATE:At least, I THOUGHT I loved Barack Obama. He just announced a freeze on discretionary spending. HOOVER Redux??? Dude, did we elect a genuine... REPUBLICAN? What the FUCK?)
But I do not want another Jimmy Carter Presidency. And I agree with this man's essay, in its entirety, though he doesn't come right out and say that a Jimmy Carter Presidency is where Obama is headed. If Obama doesn't turn things around, immediately, that is what we will have.
I am furious and frustrated. But I could never put it into words in as excellent a way as David Michael Green has. I hope he doesn't mind, but I'm going to quote him in his entirety below. It's just that fucking good, and just that fucking perfectly put:
A recent change of the guard in the Massachusetts Senate race force the President to reveal he is working. We, the American people, are waiting, just as we have been for months and months. For a full year, countless citizens have felt as though they were patient. Yet, the President did not seem to have their interests at heart. True change has not come. Countless constituents anticipate none is forthcoming. Three hundred and sixty five plus have gone by and the American people are tired of being patient.
{This not meant as a criticism of My Left Wing, but is a shout-out to the liberal-left, more generally.}
The liberal-progressive movement in the United States and Europe is forcing liberal Jews to make some very difficult choices. The voices who dominate the I-P discussion on the left are telling liberal Jews that they must make a choice; they can support Israel or they can support the progressive movement, but they cannot support both. This is rarely stated explicitly, of course, but it is the implication embedded in the never-ending disdain and contempt heaped upon the Jewish state by those liberals who claim to speak for human rights... even as they almost entirely ignore horrendous human rights violations by China or Russia or various African countries, not to mention the so-called Coalition of the Willing.
The proximal complaint which resulted in that most recent bit of Opus Dei Ass-wholery from the Roberts Court, the above-mentioned CU v. FEC excrescence, was a film about a candidate in the highest profile races run in the USofA, a presidential primary. The ruling effectively removes all limits upon the ability of deep pockets "interests" to reach out in support of (or to defeat) selected candidates for public, usually representative 'office.' The only thing apparently expressly forbidden is the direct donation of envelopes full of cash from corporate officers to candidates.
Pretty much everything else is "on the table" as they say.
Not just at the highest levels, where the machineries of such intervention are already plenty subtle and devious enough to withstand most scrutiny. No, it opens the vein of Murkin representative corruption all the way down to even the local, civic level. What if the Mormons or the Moonies had enough money and interst in your community to buy your city council, for example? Who ELSE in the local economy would have the resources (and the will) to oppose such a well-funded effort?
The unemployment insurance system is in crisis. A record 20 million Americans collected unemployment benefits last year, and so far twenty-five states have run out of funds and been forced to borrow from federal government, raise taxes, or cut benefits. In many other states the situation is deteriorating fast. Using near real-time data on state revenues and the benefits they pay out, we estimate how long state trust funds will hold up.
(Hover your mouse over states on the map to see the current Trust Fund Balance for each state, and the Future Prediction of the balance, or the current Borrowed Amount if a state is in the red)
Click on a state [below] to find the latest, plus detailed historical data and charts, and details on tax increases and benefit cuts.
I had a very enlightening exchange on Daily Kos yesterday and it confirms for me what I have long suspected, that hatred trumps evidence. Liberals are people who like to think of themselves as fair-minded. Liberals, intellectually, at least, recognize that fundamental notions of western justice are grounded in evidence. We recognize that it is entirely unjust to condemn an individual, or a group, without that evidence.
It's not only the fact that "He's baaacck...." across our TV screens in a dithering way ... it's that - haven't we seen him elsewhere?
SEPARATED at BIRTH - "Mr. Lebowski" and Dick Cheney.
This week more-than-most: why not stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
Today, Americans are engrossed in earthquake coverage. The tremor in Haiti bought unimaginable death and destruction just south of our borders. Events related to the recovery and rescues emerge as banner headlines. Haitians Seek Solace Amid the Ruins. For a week now, the struggle to survive, revive the injured, and retrieve the bodies strewn on the streets of Port-au-Prince was also the central theme of most every broadcast. In the midst of the misery, many Americans, felt desperate for a reprieve from the devastation that emotionally drained them. Millions took time to escape in a welcome distraction. Sassy, former Governor and Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin Made Her Debut appearance on Fox. Tomorrow another reality will replace these stories, just as each superseded the hoopla over Harry Reid's reference to race. Metaphorically, the tales provide persons, policies, and, or practices fifteen minutes of fame. In actuality, these fade from our mind quickly.
(Because shanikka always warrants front-page status - promoted by puzzled)
(This was originally posted at the Orange Place, but I am cross-posting here as well, as food for thought since it really applies to all of us no matter where we blog on the left.)
Obviously, there are many people with many opinions about the debacle we have just seen happen in Massachusetts. You can tell, because for the past week since Scott Brown was first reported as being ahead in the polls, there has been blame cast on everybody and their mama in advance of what we now know was Martha Coakley's loss of what was previously a "secure" Democratic senate seat.
No doubt, this little diary will sink under the weight of all the "No it's you damned progressives fault!", "Hell no it's you stupid centrists' fault!" "Hell no it's Obama's fault!" and numerous variants I can't even fathom right now but I feel driven to write it anyway. And to make a suggestion.
I am going to suggest quiet reflection. At least for 24 hours.
As aid trickles into Haiti and news trickles out, and as the extent of the horror unfolding there following the earthquake becomes more widely known, decisions are already being made that will affect the kind of country surviving Haitians will live in that emerges from the disaster.
In this video from The Real News today independendent journalist Ansel Herz reports live from Port-Au-Prince on the role that the deployed US troops are playing, while author Peter Hallward weighs in on the role that the US has played in Haiti's recent history and shares his concerns that post-earthquake Haiti will further cement the domination of the Haitian people by foreigners.
Ansel Herz is an independent journalist and web designer originally from the United States but currently based in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. His personal website can be found at www.mediahacker.com.
Peter Hallward is a Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University in England. In 2007 he published the acclaimed historical account of post-1990 Haitian politics, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment. He is the editor of the journal Radical Philosophy and a contributing editor to Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.
Well, I don't mean to be a scold, but I have to say that one of the more disappointing tendencies on the left-liberal blogs, or on the left, more generally, is the tendency to create hatred for a wide variety of "enemies," particularly those on the conservative right. I noticed the other day that Keith Olbermann... a propagandist, for sure, but one of our propagandists... referred to Rush Limbaugh as a "thing."
(Football party, bitchez--no time for a new Open. - promoted by puzzled)
Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest
in promoting fear. A sense of the imminence of takeover
by aliens and real diseases are useful material.
Birthers, Tenthers, 9/12'ers, and all the contemporary manifestations of the John Birch Society or the Ku Klux Klan all claim that they want their country back. Those of us on the Left, secure in our evaluation of their claims as the ravings of ignoramuses, racists, and nuts, wonder how an essentially liberal society like the United States could produce such lunacy.
Lest you think that déja vu applies only to current politicians: well .....
DIRECT DESCENDANTS? - the musician Sting and US President Ulysses S. Grant.
You can run, but you can't hide ..... yet you can take a break by stopping in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
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