Green Consciousness

About BO's Representation

2008-05-22T19:30:00.004-05:00

The comment below was posted on TENNESSEE GUERILLA WOMEN 's website.
The conversation went from MSNBC to Obama and one women wrote this fascinating comment below. Reading it, I wondered why we had not thought of looking at what BO produced before?

Why didn't we take pictures of his district and ask the question: "While Obama was eating Arugula and shopping at Whole Foods what did he do to provide for the people he represented ?"

Because that is a good indication of what he will do for us.

I am sure the republicans will produce this ad - a camera films while driving through the neighborhoods described below while a voice-over says, "No whole food markets here, in fact no grocery stores at all".

The Hillary democrats did not do it because of course we would be called racist by the Bobots and the democrats are afraid of that, whether it is true or not.

"Racist" in the democratic party has come to mean anything which focuses on black people or white people and speaks honestly about them, the realities of their life and the relationships between them. Political Demographics, if mentioned by the Clintons is proof of their "racism" according to the fast talking AA law professors on MSNBC. The "inference" we are told, the appeal to white racism, is there.

It would be good if we could get the idiot race police off our backs so we could speak our truths without fear. The race police bully us into making choices that are against our best interests.

Racism has also come to mean any criticism of Obama by Clinton supporters.

This is also called "hurting the democratic party" and "hurting the nominee's chances to be elected" and the ever fruitful " working to defeat BO so Hill can run in 2012". These myths can and will serve to blame Clinton for the loss of the election if the Precious One blows it. Maybe the party leaders can find a way to pin Kerry's and Gore's losses on her as well.

Because the continual losses to repubs could not possibly be because of the stupidity of our party's leaders and million dollar consultants, - could it?

This is the comment I read on TGW.

Are you talking about our communities as in some black communities they could use a few principles the black community is suffering and when Obama was a State
Senate they suffered most of all in his district while he appeased and supported Rezko with his slumlord business those buildings that Rezko owned are now abandoned and boarded up they are a blight on the community what did
Obama do as a state senator not a dam thing.
In places like Englewood , Robbins, Harvey, they dont even have major supermarkets where children can have
fresh food these communities are laced with liquor stores and predatory lending, pawn shops and rent to own are you kidding with guns, project living, drugs, gangs, cameras throughout the communities up on light poles at every traffic stop.
Who are you trying to kid. I am black and I dont even live there
my husband was born and raised in Illinois and he loves to give me the scary tour.
And furthermore Rev Wright is the issue because he was his mentor, spiritual advisor, sounding board, listen to his wife complain about him, blessed his new home, baptized his children and hopefully very soon it will show that he lent
his pulpit to Michelle so she could rant and rave about the ill's of the white world like Rev Wright taught her.

So go away and come back when you get
better talking points.

So much for your community clean up your own
home first before you talk about community
marie3548 05.22.08 - 4:36 pm #

Sexism Wins: Parents Right to Slave Children upheld by Misogynist Court System

2008-05-22T14:42:00.002-05:00

Court: Texas had no right to take polygamists' kids
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints mother, right, and her attorney navigate the yellow police tape put up to keep journalists back while walking to the Tom Green County courthouse for the fourth day of custody hearings near San Angelo, Texas, Thursday, May 22, 2008. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
View related video

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- A Texas appeals court said Thursday that the state had no right to take more than 400 children from a polygamist sect's ranch, a ruling that could unravel one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the state offered "legally and factually insufficient" grounds for the "extreme" measure of removing all children from the ranch, from babies to teenagers.

The state never provided evidence that the children were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court approval, the appeals court said.
The state never provided evidence that teenage girls were being sexually abused, and never alleged any sexual or physical abuse against the other children, the court said.

It was not immediately clear whether the children scattered across foster facilities statewide might soon be reunited with parents.
Every child at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado was taken into state custody more than six weeks ago, after Child Protective Services officials argued that members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and groomed boys to become adult perpetrators.

"The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger," the court said in its ruling, overturning the order to keep the children by state District Judge Barbara Walther, a former family law attorney.

The appeals court also said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as an individual household and that any abuse claims could apply only to individual households.

Julie Balovich, an attorney representing 38 mothers of the children, said the appeals court "has stood up for the legal rights of these families and given these mothers hope that their families will be brought back together."
"It is a great day for families in the State of Texas," Balovich said.
She said Walther has 10 days to comply with the appeals court ruling.
CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said department attorneys had just received the ruling and would make any decision about an appeal later.
"We are trying to assess the impact that this may have on our case," he said.

Calls to FLDS officials were not immediately returned Thursday.
Roughly a third of the children taken from the west Texas ranch were babies, and only a few dozen were teenage girls.
Of the 31 originally believed to be underage mothers, 15 have been reclassified as adults - one was 27 years old - and the state conceded a 14-year-old girl had no children and was not pregnant, as officials previously asserted.

Five judges in San Angelo, about 40 miles north of Eldorado, have been hearing CPS's plans for the parents seeking to regain custody. Those hearings, which began Monday, were scheduled to run for two more weeks - though it was unclear how the appellate ruling might affect those cases.

The custody case has been chaotic from the beginning. The hearing in which Walther ruled that the children should all enter state custody ran two days.

Hundreds of lawyers crammed into a courtroom and nearby auditorium, queuing up to voice objections or ask questions on behalf of the mothers who were there in their trademark prairie dresses and braided hair.

CPS has struggled with even the identities of the children for weeks.

The sect children were removed en masse during a raid that began April 3 after someone called a domestic abuse hot line claiming to be a pregnant abused teenage wife.

The girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.

The FLDS, which teaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a breakaway of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. Members contend they are being persecuted by state officials for their religious beliefs.

Corporate Influence on State Supreme Courts Show Need for Reform

2008-05-22T12:05:00.006-05:00

Over the past decade, elections for state high court seats have gone from sleepy, mildly partisan affairs to major political battles with huge campaign spending, millions in independent special interest advertising, and misleading and negative attacks in the forefront. TV advertising is now apart of virtually all (91%) contested state supreme court elections, up from about one in five elections in 2000.

And in 2006 business groups were the source of more than 90% of those ads. Business groups are also the source of almost half of all campaign contributions in these races.

The amount of money now entering these races is staggering. Between 1999 and 2007 candidates for state supreme courts raised over $165 million dollars.

This is a situation which troubles Americans greatly, even at the beginning of the decade 84 percent of voters and 79 percent of judges hd concern about special interest groups influencing judicial elections.

Wisconsin Business Groups Spend Millions to Hijack the State's Supreme Court: After corporate defeat in consumer safety litigation, business groups in Wisconsin have poured millions in the past two election cycles to defeat two members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court and replace them with pro-business jurists.

The court has now been switched from having a majority of pro-consumer jurists to a majority that supports corporate interests over those of individuals.

Both races have seen more third party spending than that spent by the candidates themselves and have been marked by particularly harsh and deceptive advertisements.

The first of the two brutal and exceedingly expensive campaigns led the entire supreme court to issue a letter last year supporting public financing of supreme court elections -- even signed by the member recently elected with the help of massive business lobby spending.

Soon after her election that justice, Annette Ziegler, paid fines and was recommended for censure for previously hearing cases involving a company her husband helped manage.

West Virginia's Chief Justice Taken Down by Influence Scandal: West Virginia Chief Justice Elliott Maynard recently lost his re-election bid after a scandal erupted over pictures of him vacationing in Monte Carlo with the CEO of Massey Energy at the same time the company was appealing a $240 million jury verdict to the high court.

The chief justice originally refused to recuse himself from the case, but finally relented after the petitioners obtained a rehearing.

Massey Energy is a controversial, union busting coal company with considerable power in the state.

Systematically Driving Corporate Policy Through the Courts: As we highlighted in a Dispatch last year, starting in the late 1990s, Karl Rove worked with politically-aligned business interests to begin a systematic takeover of state courts to undermine consumer rights and limit corporate liability for harm to consumers.

In 2004, for example, business groups spent $21.5 million on state supreme court elections, eclipsing the amount spent by plaintiffs' attorneys and their allies, with courts including Texas and Alabama shifting to the corporate defendants' side. In 2005-2006 business groups contributed twice as much, $15.2 million, directly to supreme court candidates than lawyers did.

Strategies for Protecting the Judiciary: Many states have avoided problems like those is Wisconsin and West Virginia by implementing basic reforms to insulate the Judiciary from corporate special interest spending:
Public Financing: North Carolina and New Mexico now have full public financing of high court campaigns. New Mexico's system is brand new, but in North Carolina public financing has had a transformative effect on judicial elections.

Special interest and attorney contributions have been driven out of the process, from 73% of non-family funds in 2002 to 14% in 2004.

Over two-thirds of judicial candidates now run for office under public financing. The North Carolina system is immensely popular with the public, a year after it was implemented 78% of voters approved of maintaining the practice.

Public financing is also supported by the American Bar Association, which adopted it as an official policy in 2002.

Merit Selection: Many states have an independent merit selection process for appointing justices combined with retention elections. This so-called "Missouri plan" insulates the judiciary from special-interest dominated election campaigns while still allowing for voters to exert some democratic control over the judiciary.

Such systems have almost uniformly been free of expensive campaign spending and politicized campaigns and theses systems instill confidence in the public. In Missouri, 68 percent of voters trust the Missouri Supreme Court to adhere to the letter of the law rather than their own political beliefs.

Recusal Standards: Establishing better standards for when a justice should or must recuse themselves is another way to help limit the influence of big donors.

It also reduces the incentive for special interests to insert themselves in judicial campaigns because their favored justice won't be in a position to support them in any dispute before the court.

With corporate special interest money increasingly seeking to control judicial outcomes, states with elected courts have a number of options for helping to reduce the avenues for money-dominated elections to distort justice.

This release above is from the Progressive States Network (PSN) which is not itself free of corporate interests. While purporting to speak for the working class and Unions, it organizes to protect corporations' ability to hire scab illegal immigrants, thereby lowering wages, eliminating benefits and busting Unions.

So you have to wonder who is paying THEIR staff salaries and who is on their Board. They do not represent the interests of working class citizens. They represent those who want to exploit slave labor which includes some so called Unions. There will be no strong labor movement until the working folks take back their organizations from the wealthy who make policy and the criminals who take the money and pensions.

Still, this particular report is useful to voters.

Don't donate to fake Clinton support websites

2008-05-21T19:59:00.003-05:00

Fake Clinton support websites have been set up urging you to donate to them through paypal -- this is a fake one:

bugshale has left a new comment on your post "CLINTON SUPPORTERS COUNT 2":

Hi: please join us by logging on to w.clintonsupporterscounttoo.org.
together we can change the course of history of this great nations. It is time for the common man to take a uncommon stand and tell the DNC and Super Delegates " hell no, we won't go"

The sexist language is one sign of a false website - Another sign of a false website is the fact that it is asking for money - diverting money from Hillary -- with nothing to show for it but a cheesy website.

DON'T GIVE TO THESE TYPE OF WEBSITES!

Give to Hillary at her official website or to Clinton Supporter PAC.

Don't give to false websites set up by con artists and Bobots.

Collaborators

2008-05-21T16:24:00.003-05:00

Today I listened to nauseating women on NPR. One from NARAL explaining why they were proud to endorse Obama. One from Emily's List excusing women they gave 300,000 & 500,000 dollars (of OUR money) respectively, for endorsing Obama. If I hear one more national so called feminist leader excusing their own and the MSM's sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton I will explode.

I said it during the WAR when I tried to get feminist organizations to support Iraqi and Afghan women and I say it again now. Most First Wave Feminist Organizations (FWFOS) have been wholly corrupted. They do not work for women, are not part of the feminist movement and you should not donate to them. They are working for their non profit businesses. There are republican and corporate types on their Boards and their interests are commercial not feminist. They are even more of a scam than a business. A scam to separate you from your money in order to give it to the elites. They travel in elite circles and have contempt for true believers just as Obama does. They are experts at justifying their betrayals. They say they do it for you, sweetie.

When their actions lose us this election, then will you stop creating a grass roots collection plate for them?

The antidote for this is a refreshing post at Shakesville:

Hillary Sexism Watch, Part Ninety-Goddamn-Six

posted by Melissa McEwan Wednesday, May 21, 2008
In case you needed any motivation for Assignment: Teaspoon below, CNN—yes, the same outlet currently running the question "Do you agree with Sen. Hillary Clinton that the press has ignored sexism in the campaign?" without a trace of irony, unless their position is: "No, we're not ignoring it; we're fomenting it!"—yesterday featured a panel debating whether calling accomplished attorney and advocate, former First Lady, two-term Senator, and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a "white bitch" is appropriate.
MORE HERE

My Prayer

2008-05-20T16:03:00.001-05:00

This morning, the USDA announced that it will implement a complete ban on slaughter for human consumption of cattle unable to stand and walk unassisted. The decision comes after The Humane Society of the United States documented horrible abuses of downed cows in a series of undercover videos.

For far too long, sick and crippled animals have been allowed into the food supply, subjecting them to needless torment and putting consumers at risk. Thanks in part to many thousands of animal advocates who emailed and called public officials about the scandalous mistreatment of these animals, the USDA is moving to close the downer loophole. We are calling on the agency to expedite the process and ban the slaughtering of downers without delay.

Once the loophole is closed, we'll push for additional reforms. Stronger federal legislation is needed to ensure humane euthanasia of downers and protect all farm animals from this kind of abuse.

If you haven't already asked your legislators to co-sponsor the Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection Act, please do so now.

Thank you for playing an active part in this victory, and for all you do for animals.

Sincerely,

Wayne Pacelle
President & CEO
The Humane Society of the United States

Cries Britches

2008-05-20T15:29:00.007-05:00

The ballad 'Cries Britches' on Youtube has reached 100,000 visits. They are going to publish this news in the main animalist pages of Spain.

The Below was written by member of the ALF which is a global organization. Their english is not perfect but their hearts are just fine.

SOURCE: ANIMALMUSICA

The song "Cries Britches", with music of the group of Lyvon rock and lyrics of the poet Padilla Angel reached 100,000 visits in the vestibule www.youtube.com .

"Britches Cries" is dedicated to the macaco monkey Britches, that in an American scientific research laboratory, to both days to be born, separated it of their mother and they sewed the eyelids to him to verify if the induced blindness produces cerebral injuries, putting under it simultaneously interminable sessions of ultrasounds emitted by great helmets tied to its small head by fabrics, all it almost greater than its own head.

Britches, luckily, was released by the ALF, Animal Liberation Front (in the page www.animalliberationfront.com can be seen the video of the liberation), not therefore the million animals that anywhere in the world continue being used like coberries in experiments of all type, like the one to cut the head of a dog and to put it in the body of a monkey or the one of "the false mothers", that it consists of separating a monkey of his mother and showing mothers to him of peluche, floods of nails, other who emit current, that the monkey continues itself embracing thinking that she is his mother; experiment this using with the excuse to verify the affectivity of the animals between its same types.

All these stupid and cruel experiments are carried out without no type of anesthesia nor compassion. For that reason, by all those that "still follow there", Lyvon and Padilla they united his creation and arose "Cries Britches", powerful and dark ballad where Britches speaks by all those that "they follow there", as well as by all the other animals that in the world are humiliated and assassinated by the man, who undergo the most extreme solitude, the incendiariest pain and madness, in the cruel zoos, circuses, cattle ranch, traditions... As much the components of Lyvon as Padilla Angel we are thankful to all the affection to the song and, which they have still not listened to it, we animated them to do it: http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=7May_T5MgDs .

We are thinking too, Michelle

2008-05-19T12:52:00.006-05:00

Tired of the Bosses? Go Here

Men for Hillary suggests:

The superdelegates should be given a gag order (allowable under the rules of a private organization such as the DNC) and released from all commitments to pay any attention to any previous results, whatsoever.

Superdelegates should be required to refund all monies donated to their campaigns by either Clinton or Obama and receive no promises of contributions or further contributions until after the Democratic convention, or, otherwise lose their right to vote.

Superdelegates should then be allowed to vote sometime around the end of June in privacy and the outcome of that vote should be the guiding principle for the determination of the nominee for president.

WOMEN COUNT 2 HAS A WEBSITE

CLINTON SUPPORTERS COUNT 2

2008-05-18T13:26:00.008-05:00

Thanks to gendergappers

A MESSAGE FROM "CLINTON SUPPORTERS COUNT TOO"

Your responses are pouring in and have filled our inboxes in all states. We are moving rapidly and will have a website up soon, and are trying to respond to your emails as quickly as possible. Please pass this information on to everyone you can.

Here's what we need to do.

Make calls to OR and KY. We will have another stunning victory in KY and close the gap in OR. We believe the opposition will announce that he has won the nomination on May 20th after the polls close. It will not be believable when Hillary is announcing a HUGE VICTORY IN KY.

Organize a demonstration in front of your local NBC affiliate on election night, May 20th, starting at 6:30pm, until, preferably, the close of the 11:00 news. If you do not live close to your NBC affiliate, DO NOT WATCH IT. MAKE THEIR RATINGS PLUMMET.

This must be done nationwide so that our numbers and strength are visible. We have announced this boycott of NBC at our press conference. Do this to show the strength of Hillary Supporters to defeat this less-qualified candidate that has been blatantly aided with biased reporting by much of the media, and protest the sexist behavior and disgraceful comments from NBC anchors.

Make you own signs, for Hillary or against any of these offenses. Use your imagination. But most of all, JUST DO IT. YOU BEING THERE WILL MAKE THE STATEMENT THAT WOMEN ALL OVER AMERICA, ARE MAD AS HECK AND AREN'T GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE.

Lastly, for this email anyway….. THIS IS NOT OVER…DON'T LET ANYONE TELL YOU IT IS AND DON'T LET YOURSELF THINK IT IS. IT IS NOT OVER.

This is only one part of the Road to the White House and the candidates are statistically neck to neck. The next step is the Resolution of FL and MI and we will demonstrate in Washington on May 31st when the Rules Committee meets.

Save the date. …more later. Each time we enter a new phase we will determine the most effective strategy and communicate it to you. Your part is to help make it happen throughout OH, MI, PA and FL, the critical states where we have the advantage.

THIS IS OUR MOMENT. HILLARY IS OUR CANDIDATE. WE HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE HISTORY. LET'S USE IT!

Jamie Dixey
Clinton Supporters Count Too!

Emily's List ???

2008-05-18T10:35:00.006-05:00

Here is some info from the forum posted by threedee:

"BHO superdelegate Sen.Claire McCaskill received from EMILY’s List $518,938 for her election bid in 2006, Sen.Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) $357,400 in 2006

see full list of Emily’s List recipients here

Not all are superdelegates of BHO, however, one might note that those that received some of the largest contributions from Emily's List have thrown their support behind BHO.
This is a slap in the face and a violation of trust of the women donors to Emily's List who are pro women candidates.

The elected women that have benefited from Emily's List and are now supporting BHO, should refund their contributions and publicly apologize to Emily's Lists members."

Contact EMILY's List
1120 Connecticut Avenue NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 326-1400
Fax: (202) 326-1415

San Francisco, CA
EMILY's List
100 Spear Street
Suite 1510
San Francisco, CA 94105

Phone: (415) 658-0700
Fax: (415) 658-0707

I used their contact form to send Emily this message:

BHO superdelegate Sen.Claire McCaskill received from EMILY’s List $518,938 for her election bid in 2006, Sen.Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) $357,400 in 2006

The elected women that have benefited from Emily's List and are now supporting BHO, should refund their contributions and publicly apologize to Emily's Lists members."

EMILY'S LIST should, in the future, refuse to fund super delegates who defected to Obama before the last primary.

Hillary IS Organized

2008-05-18T07:31:00.016-05:00

Impressive - check out this forum for her activist organizers. It is like a bee hive.

Go here to Anglachelg and read about the pod cast the Hill had with bloggers yesterday.

She is NOT quitting and neither are we.

Write Hillary In

2008-05-17T20:26:00.001-05:00

Write in rules - state by state for those who refuse to reward sexism.

Feminist Blow back

2008-05-17T09:48:00.010-05:00

There are two important posts I want to share. The first is from the Reclusive Leftist who every feminist must read. The second is from Riverdaughter whose blog is called Confluence. Riverdaughter is using her blog to organize. Riverdaughter's post on her blog is filled with fascinating links I have not copied - go there and read her entire post.

From Reclusive Leftist:

From HillBuzz, the exciting news we’ve all been waiting for!

Apparently, according to FOX News, the Obama campaign has hired 400 bloggers to influence the public discourse and sway Hillary voters to “remember we are all Democrats”, to give up Clinton’s cause, and to become dutiful citizens of the Obama Nation.

Also, it’s been noted by several HillBuzz readers, that Obama volunteers are being told to ratchet down the anti-Hillary hate, because someone in the campaign realizes Hillary Clinton supporters are not very likely to support Obama if he becomes the nominee.
...
What’s that? We’re all Democrats? Oh, that’s nice. Okay, you have a nice day, you hear? Bye-bye! Thanks so much! Bye! Mm, you too! Bye! Thanks again! Okay, bye now! Bye!

Posted on May 16, 2008 by riverdaughter
Friday: Fast II and call to action___

Ok, folks, it looks like this ball is starting to roll. With HCFP doing a haka and Steve Corbett at WILK launching Operation Turndown today, we are seeing thousands of people finally losing patience with the DNC and pushing back against Obama as the inevitable candidate.

We know that Clinton is the stronger, more qualified candidate. We know that the Republicans would like nothing more than to be running against an unvetted, inexperienced weak candidate like Obama. And we know that Obama got to be where he is by suppression of Clinton voters by:

a.) undemocratic caucuses in heavily Republican states,
b.) the active participation of the DNC Rules and Bylaws committee who imposed an unnecessarily harsh penalty on Florida and Michigan
c.) the refusal of the Obama campaign to work towards a solution for those two states before the primary season ends ,
d.) discouraging donors from contributing to Clinton’s campaign or any outside group that might be friendly to her and
e.) the unconscionable media narrative of the past two weeks that Obama is now our nominee with the clear intention of depressing voter turnout. In short, Barack Obama “wins” by suppressing the votes of his opponents.

In this, he is aided and abetted by a corporate media and Republican operatives in that media landscape and the DNC itself. The party has turned against Hillary Clinton in order to expunge the “old coalition” of working class, elderly, ethnic and female constituents for a smaller “new coalition” of affluent liberals and African-Americans.

The purpose of this purge may be to install a more tech............
More to Read on this post here. Posted on May 16, 2008 by riverdaughter
Friday: Fast II and call to action___

I would also recommend the long history of the left tradition thoughtfully done by Anglachel's Journal titled Radical Divergence

I respect Anglachel's scholarship and feminism. I feel her post is instructive and should be read. However, ultimately, I feel the same as I do when people say I should study the Koran to understand Muslims. I don't care what they say they believe, I only care what they actually DO.

All religions including political religions say one thing and often do the opposite. What does what they say they stand for mean when their actions contribute to the enslavement of women? Answer: The Line, (rhetoric) just obscures the reality and covers the cruelty
But see here why she is really hot reading:

"To wrap up, while there is deep hatred of Hillary (even more than of Bill) among the Best & Brightest, something that is an ugly mix of misogyny, class arrogance and loathing of "white trash", I think the stonger political feeling among the Stevensonians is resentment.

I've been chastised (stupidly) for talking about AA identity voting for Obama, even as I've said repeatedly that this is not a pernicious phenomenon even as it may frustrate the livin' bejeezus out of HRC supporters.

What is not so obvious is that the wine-track is doing class identity voting when going for Obama; there are a lot of bitter, resentful "creative class" voters out there, clinging to their overly inflated opinions of their cultural and intellectual superiority.

This is what is oozing out of their diatribes against Hillary supporters as well as against her. The recent posts by Bowers, DDay, and others of that ilk crowing about the triumph of Whole Foods shoppers to rule the world has always been there. It's just been coded and disguised with a lot of hooey."

"Anna mentions something I had not considered, but which rings true on a number of levels - that there is more than a little pattern of the Clarence Thomas hearings in the curent contest. I don't want to push the comparison too far, but her core observation is right on the money: "Any and all criticism of the nominee is discounted as suspect racism and the woman trying to report reality is demonized with glee. "

And then there is this from Ponies, Cows and K Street

"But the other animal in this contest is the Cash Cow, and this is something that The Precious appears to have on a leash. The money issue is fascinating, and may have as much salience as the obsession with driving the Clintons from the party. While I don’t think Obama has managed to create a substantially new voting base, he is clearly trying to control all the money. Whether or not he can do that is another question. It will depend on the outcome of the general election.

The candidate whose appeal is to the big bucks donors (and not always Democratic donors, if the attendees of his Bittergate San Francisco fundraiser is any sign) is now trying to monopolize Democratic cash flow to create the simplest and crudest of political machines, a straightforward cash-exchange patronage system. He’s done some time-honored practices like giving to large sums of money to other politicians’ campaign chests, and handing over donor lists in exchange for endorsements. The new twist (and I have to admit a certain admiration for the sheer chutzpah of it all) is to demand that his donors not provide money to any other outlet than himself so that he can be the Godfather of campaign funds, dispensing it to reward loyalty and punish defections and opposition. You do business with us and only us or else (sound of knuckles cracking). Got it? It does fit well with the bully-boy tactics we’ve seen in everything else this guy has done.

The demand that other modes of political communication and action be denied operating funds is savvy in several ways. It makes Obama the arbiter of political viability. It boosts the power of his message by reducing the number and efficacy of competing voices and alternate views. It enforces loyalty to his agenda, preventing an internal opposition from forming. In its structure, it is the same as the Republican’s K-Street project, a shake-down racket.

Hmm, maybe The Precious should have been a little more specific about exactly which Republican ideas he thought were so good."

Sign the petition but also...

2008-05-16T12:59:00.009-05:00

The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting on May 31 to make a decision about Florida and Michigan. Send a message to the DNC telling them to count the votes and seat Florida and Michigan's delegates.

Sign the petition - but also tell the Dammed DNC that the Michigan and Florida votes must be counted in proportion to their actual candidate count or done over completely. Many volunteers have offered to pay for a do over. Obama is unfairly attempting to cheat the people of these states by opposing a do-over and insisting the delegates be split equally between the two candidates, thus giving him delegates he did not win. BO deliberately took his name off the ballot because he knew he would not do well in working class Michigan.

If BO continues to argue the votes from those states should be split equally, delegates should refuse and split at the convention in proportion to the actual votes given for each candidate.

If the delegates refuse, voters for Hillary should write in her name on their presidential ballots.

Got this misty video from Heidi's blog

Check out this West Virginia Mountain Woman who reports her activity for the Hill's big victory.

Not So Fast

2008-05-16T12:26:00.005-05:00

This is lifted in total from the Taylor March blog. TM has a better layout and I advise you to go there to view it. The most comprehensive information on talking and organizing is in the commentaries on the Hot Topic section of her blog. If you do not read anything else on the web READ THIS THREAD!

Not So Fast
Guest post by Scan

WomenCount PAC plans to run the following full-page, front section "open letter" in USA Today and other newspapers in the coming days, and they need your support.

Not So Fast…
Hillary’s Voice is OUR Voice,
And She’s Speaking for All of Us
We are the women of this nation. We are rich and poor, young and old, married with kids, married without kids, single moms, gay, straight, and widowed. We are every color. We are of every religion. We are from all political parties.

We love our country. Now more than ever, so much of what we cherish is at risk – our homes and our health, our safety and our planet, our children and our values. We raise our voices, in one glorious, defiant chorus, to tell the world that these times demand strength, courage and vision.

And that is why we stand united in our unwavering support for Hillary Clinton. As Senator Clinton campaigns, she speaks with our voice. She carries our hopes, dreams and aspirations with her and transforms them into policies that can make our nation great again.

We know that Hillary will not rest until every American has health insurance, every child can start school ready to learn, every young person has a chance to attend college, every worker will have a safe job at decent wages. She will not rest until our men and women in the military receive the care they deserve and America foreign policy is grounded in human rights and military strength.

We know this because we have seen her do this -- at home and around the world.

We cannot stand by as a cacophony of voices demand that she step aside to smooth the road for another.

Women risked all they held dear to make this country great. They put their lives on the line in all our quests for justice – from Abigail Adams to Sojourner Truth to Susan B. Anthony to Eleanor Roosevelt to Fannie Lou Hamer to Barbara Jordan to Dolores Huerta to Hillary herself.

We know that when women vote, Democrats win. Now it is the responsibility of our party to hear our voices and count all our votes.
We want Hillary to stay in this race until every vote is cast, every vote is counted, and we are convinced our voices are heard.

WE SUPPORT HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT

To make this full-page placement a reality, they need your support today and through the end of this week. Please see nycvoter's post in Hot Topics for more information on what you can do to help get this message out.

Update via DebDeb:
WomenCount PAC is appreciative of all those who wish to donate to the ads they are planning to run. They stress, however, that if you are not maxed out, that your donations go to Senator Clinton's campaign FIRST and the WomenCount PAC second.
Please send checks Payable to: "WomenCount PAC "
Mail to:
c/o Megan Asmus,
The Sutton Law Firm,
PC150 Post Street Suite 405
San Francisco, CA 94108

An overnight FedEx would be appreciated, but is certainly not a requirement. They will be happy to receive your donation via snail-mail. If, however, you are sending FedEx, please include the law firm's phone number on the package: 415.732.7700.

An electronic payment method is also in the works.

In order to place this ad according the schedule below, we have started a PAC called WomenCount PAC. The FEC ID will be issued in the next day or two at most. In order to place this “open letter” ad, the WomenCount PAC will need to raise $80,000 by close of day Tuesday, May 13 and a total of $250,000 by Saturday, May 17.

The letter will run in full-page format in the front section as follows:

1) USA Today – Thursday, May 15

2) NYTimes Sunday Edition – Sunday, May 17

3) Portland Oregonian – Sunday, May 17

4) Medford Mail Tribune – Monday, May 19

A press release, blog and viral email blitz will accompany the timing of the USA Today and NYT placements and we hope to begin a wave of “patience” and desire to see this entire process through to the end.We hope you will reach into your heart and into your wallet and give any amount between $20 and $5000 dollars to put this important letter up. As you can see, we must receive at least $80,000 by the end of the day on Wednesday. Checks should be made out to WomenCount PAC. It is imperative that you Federal Express your checks to:C/O Gabe CamarilloThe Sutton Law Firm, PC150 Post St.Suite 405San Francisco, CA 94108415 732-7700

Laptops May Be Subject to Suspicionless Searches at the Border

2008-05-15T17:25:00.008-05:00

From the ABA

25 April 2008 10:02:27
Caution Travelers: Laptops May Be Subject to Suspicionless Searches at the Border

Earlier this week, the Ninth Circuit issued a ruling in United States v. Arnold that the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonable suspicion” requirement does not apply to the search of a laptop during an international border crossing.

The court rejected Arnold’s argument that a laptop should be treated similarly to a home or office for privacy purposes, holding instead that a laptop was akin to a traveler’s luggage. George Washington University Law School Professor Orin Kerr discusses the holding in more detail at the Volokh Conspiracy blog.

Arnold presents an interesting challenge for attorneys who travel internationally: how do you safeguard the sensitive client and firm data on your laptop when a security person, sans any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, can investigate your files?

The easiest and best solution is simply to avoid placing sensitive or confidential information on your laptop. Such information can be stored on secure servers at an attorney’s main office and accessed remotely via VPN, or encrypted and stored remotely with an online backup vendor.

If internet access will be unavailable on your trip or you otherwise require local copies of your sensitive information, consider encrypting the data and perhaps also relocating it to a storage device such as a USB thumb drive or CD-R.

While such methods won’t guarantee you privacy, they may reduce the likelihood that your client’s confidential information will be revealed in a casual search of your laptop.

Mind Your Metadata: Don’t Reveal Strategic Information Through Hidden Comments, Tracked Changes, and Document Properties

Rick Segal, apparently an ex-Microsoft employee and current venture capitalist, writes of a business plan he received which contains revealing metadata that the authors obviously didn’t intend for anyone else to see. Potentially strategic information has been leaked via metadata in a number of high profile incidents relevant to the legal world, including during a lawsuit by SCO against DaimlerChrysler. Some lawyers routinely check documents they receive from opposing counsel for metadata.

Metadata can hide in several forms in Microsoft Word documents, including comments if you have not deleted all comments from the document, tracked changes if you have not accepted or rejected all changes in the document, and document properties (see File->Properties in the menu, under the “Summary” tab there is information such as title, author, and company, that you may want to change or delete). Converting to PDF is not a foolproof way of preventing metadata from reaching prying eyes as document properties metadata and other metadata such as comments may be preserved. (Acrobat 8 features an “Examine Document” tool which can help bring to your attention metadata in a document). Programs exist to “scrub” your documents of metadata, including Workshare Protect and Payne Consulting’s Metadata Assistant

Metadata Minefield

One of the first things Vincent Polley does after receiving a document from opposing counsel is look for metadata, the hidden information embedded in computer files.

“When I get a document, I take a look for a couple of things, like who it was written by and the number of revisions it went through,” says Polley, who practices information technology law at Dickinson Wright in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and serves on the council of the ABA Section of Business Law. “You can learn a lot about what someone is sending you that you can’t see by just looking at a document.”

The potential value of metadata is hard to ignore. The Pentagon, the British government and a number of public figures were all embarrassed when metadata revealed that their public statements were at odds with private communications....

The risk of metadata is that an attorney will unknowingly send an electronic document to opposing counsel that includes confidential, privileged or trade secret information. Word processing software, for example, often includes menu commands that allow someone to see edits and changes that have been made to a document, including text that has been deleted.

The biggest concern may be a comments feature that contains confidential information about a document not meant to be included in the final version.

A lot of people use the comments feature to tell co-workers important information, according to Donna Payne, founder of the Payne Group in Seattle, which makes metadata-stripping software. “But if you leave the comments feature on when you send a document out,” she says, “you’re broadcasting your internal discussions to the other side.”

Polley’s firm has a standing policy on metadata. “In my firm, we scrub our outbound communications,” he says. “Metadata is useful internally to keep track of your documents, but if you’re sending something to opposing counsel, you’d better think about cleaning it up first.”

...

Nasty NARAL

2008-05-15T13:57:00.005-05:00

I was sickened and outraged by NARAL's endorsement of BO. They could not give Hillary who fought for them, the courtesy of waiting three weeks?

I wondered if corporate types have taken over the NARAL Board as this is what they do when they want to neutralize an organization. Get appointed to the board and fire activist staff under various pretensions. Hire their own kind instead. Or it might just be opportunistic positioning.

In any case, NARAL will never see another dime from me. Those who want to help with abortion should donate to the Women's Medical Fund (WMF). Click on "Favorite Places" on the green column to your right. Go to W. This WMF is in Madison but I believe there is a WMF in every region - google it. Or give your money to Emily's List.

Thanks to Lady Boomer NYC for printing this. Lady Boomer who I was pointed to by Men for Hillary published the Emily's List response which speaks for all feminists in this matter as follows:

The following is a statement from EMILY’s List president, Ellen R. Malcolm, on NARAL’s endorsement of BO in the Democratic presidential competition:

“I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton — who held up the nomination of a FDA commissioner in order to force approval of Plan B and who spoke so eloquently during the Supreme Court nomination about the importance of protecting Roe vs. Wade — to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process. It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them.
Greenconsciousness left a comment on Lady Boomer's blog as follows:
But this is a conspiracy, the Great Left Wing conspiracy as opposed to the Great Right Wing conspiracy.

In the end it is the same corporate money monster behind each door, the same wealthy sons of privilege who are their politicians and the same tactics used to divide and conquer the great unwashed masses, GUWM (their term). BO calls the same, the small town Bitter (STB).

That is why we cannot follow leaders but must maintain our own mass organizations to lobby for our interests which WE must clearly define. To do this we must learn to stand with one another around common issues despite our differences otherwise. The aim of the corporate elite is to make sure that does not happen - hence the cultural divides.

They now OWN the media - GE the builder of nuclear power plants owns MSNBC and NBC. Excelon, the IL Nuclear industry owns Obama. Foreign interests including Saudi Arabia own FOX.

The GLW conspiracy has members on boards and hire the staff of so called Progressive non profits who organize to legitimize illegal immigrant slave labor to bust unions and lower wages.

The wealthy are funding the staff of non profit Left Wing think tanks. The GLW conspiracy calls women racist for opposing the Muslim religion/culture which enslaves women. It is not the religion they say in horror - they call us Islamaphopes, they call us racist.

The GLW conspiracy may well be on the Board of NARAL at this very moment.

Every year they come up with a new tactic to split the Dem's and elect their own kind. This time, regardless of whether BO or McCain gets elected, they will have a president who they can control.

It was critical to eliminate Hillary Clinton who could not be controlled and who was capable of implementing the policy which BO copies but cannot accomplish. Yes BO will build nuclear and call it green and he will privatize social security and call it helping the young.

When will we wake up? I don't know. What will happen then? I am hoping for a third party, the Center Democrats, formed by the Clintons to accomplish working class goals as she articulated in her campaign. If I am wrong and BO really does what Edwards preaches, then we will not need such a party. But I am not hopeful.

Good Comments

2008-05-15T09:21:00.007-05:00

from Angry For A Reason on the Post "What is Going on with the Party"
Old green said...
I will never vote for Senator Obama. He is a tool of the corporations. His environmental policy is a nightmare. Has anyone else picked up on the creepy support he is getting from NBC and MSNBC(owned by GE)? The same GE that makes nuclear plants. BO is a proponent of nuclear power. Senator Clinton clearly states that we can't go for nuclear power until the waste issue has a viable solution.

Keep up the good work.

There is a new comment on the Reclusive Leftist, see post "Understanding Obamamania: the triumph of Republican-style politics".
Author: Susan Mayhew
Comment:
Your words were so prophetic and on target as usual.The link below goes to the latest Huffingon Post love fest for Obama, but this story is almost unbelievable. In courting the religious right (those who 'cling' to church according to the arrogant fraud)a new flier is being sent out in Kentucky (where he is not expected to win).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/14/obama-using-cross-flyer-i_n_101788.html

It is almost comical if it weren't so blatantly immoral and patronizing to people of faith; it shows the messiah BO in a church with a cross behind him (a white cross - courting the KKK?) as if preaching to a congregation.

The image is ridiculous and insulting - more evidence of BO's crass drive to win at any costs. I can only hope that the counter ad is the one that quotes him as judging people of faith as 'bitter'.This man is sick and he's more savvy than Bush who seems more and more his prototype.The 'great guy' whose unbridled ego will drive the US to complete ruin.

There is a new comment on Reclusive Leftist, see the post "Understanding Obamamania: the triumph of Republican-style politics".
Author: Susan Mayhew
Comment:
Ryan - you believe this campaign is not mean? Google anti-Hillary and read the 20 odd pages of disgusting insults by the Obama crowd. See my link above where he exploits evangelicals (those he judged 'bitter').Just saying words do not effect anything - 'Change', 'Hope', 'Unity' - are meaningless when uttered by the misogynist Obama supporters who speak for him.

You are a man and can mock the destruction he's perpetuated as over reaction - you've never been raped and many of us have been raped again by the hatred and disrespect heaped on Clinton.
'Unity'? There is no unity in his campaign.

I am 60 and Obama's campaign is the most destructive I've ever seen. The sexism is monstrous - but it reveals him.Just the other day he put off a reporter with 'just hold on 'sweetie''.. what ifa white man called a black reporter 'boy'? would that sit well with you?

As a man you can't understand the impact of the sexist remarks made either by Obama or his minions - but understand this - many of us will not vote for him as a result of his and his supporters' repellent tactics

Greenconsciousness notes: After BO said IN EVERY DEBATE that he would talk with Iran and Syria with no preconditions and inferred he would do it with any tyrant or patriarch on the face of the earth, he is denying he ever said it. Or rather BO is saying people are misinterpreting what he meant when he said it. This is not the interesting part.

The interesting part is that no media station is playing the tapes of BO making those statements. How often did we see the Bosnia false recollections which were not about what Hillary would do as president but rather about something that happened 15 years ago. Answer: they played them a hundred times a day. Now in response to Bush's statements in Israel, BO issues a totally false misinterpretation of his own stated policy, redefining language and intention and not one clip of his actual statement is shown. Instead his lying response is read 100 times a day in what seems to be an effort to obscure what BO actually said.

SEE the first comment above to solve this mystery.

How Long? Too Long.

2008-05-13T07:09:00.007-05:00

I used the old civil rights spiritual in my post title because I am saying that we have not come that far, after all.

Not because this campaign sexism is so pervasive, it happens but that so many men enjoy it so much - men who are democrats of privilege. The wealthy cultural elite of the left, most of whom led a life of privilege such as Obama. BO's mother may have been on food stamps but he never was. He was in those elite schools and doing just fine.

How these men enjoy saying it is "uneducated women" who want Hillary. They are talking about women who never had their chances - brave women - my sisters. Women who see in Hillary their own strength to get up every day, go to work, face overwhelming odds and the contempt of people who consider them self their betters. I know these women, their beautiful natural intelligence and their wisdom.

I say to all of us, believe in yourself and what you know, for soon the whole world will catch up. Soon Mr BO will have to produce without a woman to blame for his shortcomings. Soon the mother haters will be screaming in the darkness they are creating for all of us. This time we must not come to their rescue for they have shown us that their interests are NOT our interests. Let them have the Democratic party of the elite males, the Kennedys and the Kerrys, and their stepford wives and mothers. Leave the Democrats to Code Pink and the Move On Bobots. They make a nice couple. We will take the Unions.

In the meantime, anticipate with joy the new 3rd party, be ready for the new party - the Center Democrats - the party for working class and environmental issues - socially liberal - economically conservative - the policies of the Bill Clinton presidency and Hillary's in 2012.

Let us be Diana’s foresters,
Gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon;
And let men say we be men of good government, being governed,
as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon...
- Shakespeare, "King Henry IV," I, ii.

Race Cards

2008-05-10T20:08:00.004-05:00

Interesting juxtaposition over at Men For Hillary

Referring to yet another race baiting article about Hillary written by a BObot, Mark writes:

I will tell you who should be ashamed of himself -- Mr. Herbert, for being willing to ignore the many statements of Senator Obama which were not only similar to Clinton's recent musings about exit polls, but were much more arrogant. Herbert either has a convenient short memory, or his biases are more than showing.

Either both Clinton and Obama are race-baiting or they both are not. They are either both racists or they both are not. Make up your mind. They have been entirely equal in their statements that can be construed as anti-black racism or anti-white prejudice. Obama, all along, has been able say things such as he said in he said in August of 2007:
"I'm probably the only candidate who having won the nomination can actually redraw the political map," Obama told a Democratic voter skeptical that he could defeat a Republican candidate.

"I guarantee you African-American turnout, if I'm the nominee, goes up 30 percent around the country, minimum," Obama said.

"Young people's percentage of the vote goes up 25-30 percent. So we're in a position to put states in play that haven't been in play since LBJ."

"If we just got African-Americans in Mississippi to vote their percentage of the population, Mississippi is suddenly a Democratic state," Obama said. He said Georgia would also turn Democratic and South Carolina would be in play.

What dumbfounds me is that analysts (apparently, such as Herbert) will read Obama's comments and say "Well, Obama didn't say 'Clinton can't turn out the black vote' now did he? He just said he could turn out more black and young voters than anyone else, if he is the nominee." Context is everything. When you say "I guarantee a certain turnout, if I am the nominee" you are saying that NO ONE ELSE CAN DO THAT. In other words, you are saying Clinton will have a negative effect on black voter turnout. In addition, when you talk about black voter turnout based on you being the nominee and you are a black person and you don't explain on what basis you believe that will take place, on its face, it is clearly a statement of racial preferences.

On top of that, please note the words "if I'm the nominee." Given the context, one could conclude that if Obama isn't the nominee, he WON'T work to increase black and young people turn out. Interesting, don't you think? Mr. Herbert?

Not once in this entire campaign has Clinton made such an equally arrogant and clearly divisive statement about women voters, even if it may be true or it is supported by the data. She has never made such a divisive claim. But, of course, Clinton gets no credit for that.

More here...

How many states are there in the U.S.?

2008-05-10T12:12:00.005-05:00

There are fifty (50) states and 1 district, Washington D.C.

The 50 states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia*, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.
The last two states to join the Union were Alaska (49th) and Hawaii (50th). Both joined in 1959.

Washington D.C. is a federal district under the authority of Congress. Local government is run by a mayor and 13 member city council.

Washington DC is represented in Congress by an elected, nonvoting Delegate to the House of Representatives and residents have been able to vote in Presidential elections since 1961.

Puerto Rico is a commonwealth associated with the U.S. Its indigenous inhabitants are U.S. citizens. Puerto Ricans are unable to vote in U.S.Presidential elections but they do elect a nonvoting resident commissioner to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Dependent areas: American Samoa, Baker Island, Guam, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Islands, Navassa Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Palmyra Atoll, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Wake Island.

Note: from 18 July 1947 until 1 October 1994, the US administered the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, but recently entered into a new political relationship with all four political units:

the Northern Mariana Islands is a commonwealth in political union with the US (effective 3 November 1986);

Palau concluded a Compact of Free Association with the US (effective 1 October 1994);

the Federated States of Micronesia signed a Compact of Free Association with the US (effective 3 November 1986);

the Republic of the Marshall Islands signed a Compact of Free Association with the US (effective 21 October 1986)

Source: The CIA Factbook 2003Detailed information about each of the territories can also be found in this CIA publication.

2008-05-09T13:21:00.007-05:00

They never quote these types of articles: The Fight Stuff

...If anyone has been guarding the rules this election, it’s been the press, which has been primly thumbing the pages of Queensberry and scolding her [Hillary] for being “ruthless” and “nasty,” a “brawler” who fights “dirty.”
But while the commentators have been tut-tutting, Senator Clinton has been converting white males, assuring them that she’s come into their tavern not to smash the bottles, but to join the brawl.
Deep in the American grain, particularly in the grain of white male working-class voters, that is the more trusted archetype.
Whether Senator Clinton’s pugilism has elevated the current race for the nomination is debatable. But the strategy has certainly remade the political world for future female politicians, who may now cast off the assumption that
when the going gets tough, the tough girl will resort to unilateral rectitude.
When a woman does ascend through the glass ceiling into the White House, it will be, in part, because of the race of 2008, when Hillary Clinton broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys.

Susan Faludi is the author of “Backlash,” “Stiffed” and “The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America.”

Greenconsciousness notes: No Susan, it is NOT "particularly in the grain of white male working class voters" that the tough fighter is admired. Almost all people who have had tough times admire someone who does not give up when times get tough.

This is the ethic of our best people, the soldiers, protectors, the people you can rely on - the heroes. Hillary has not been "brawling". She has been conducting a skilled, tough, political campaign which has revealed her character as being solid gold - admirable.

That is why she has won the respect of almost everyone except the BO cultists. I saw a AA man who voted for BO say he wished he could have voted for both of them ..."because that Hillary, she's a sweetheart."

Community Organizing? Not Really.

2008-05-09T12:29:00.003-05:00

Everything asserted in this article is proved by the nature of the comments accompanying it which you should also read.

From The Progressive:

...It may be instructive to look at the outfit where he [Barack Hussein Obama]did his “community organizing,” the invocation of which makes so many lefties go weak in the knees.

My understanding of the group, Developing Communities Project, at the time was that it was simply a church-based social service agency.

What he pushed as his main political credential then, to an audience generally familiar with that organization, was his role in a youth-oriented voter registration drive.

The Obama campaign has even put out a misleading bio of Michelle Obama, representing her as having grown up in poverty on the South Side, when, in fact, her parents were city workers, and her father was a Daley machine precinct captain.

This fabrication, along with those embroideries of the candidate’s own biography, may be standard fare, the typical log cabin narrative. However, in Obama’s case, the license taken not only underscores Obama’s more complex relationship to insider politics in Daley’s Chicago; it also underscores how much this campaign depends on selling an image rather than substance.

There is also something disturbingly ritualistic and superficial in the Obama camp’s young minions’ enthusiasm. Paul Krugman noted months ago that the Obamistas display a cultish quality in the sense that they treat others’ criticism or failure to support their icon as a character flaw or sin.

The campaign even has a stock conversion narrative, which has been recycled in print by such normally clear-headed columnists as Barbara Ehrenreich and Katha Pollitt: the middle-aged white woman’s report of not having paid much attention to Obama early on, but having been won over by the enthusiasm and energy of their adolescent or twenty-something daughters. (A colleague recently reported having heard this narrative from a friend, citing the latter’s conversion at the hands of her eighteen year old. I observed that three short years ago the daughter was likely acting the same way about Britney Spears.)

Princeton Professor Sean Wilentz, a Clinton supporter, noted that the Obama campaign advisers have tried to have it both ways on the race question. On the one hand, they present their candidate as a figure who transcends racial divisions and “brings us together”; on the other hand, they exhort us that we should support his candidacy because of the opportunity to “make history” (presumably by nominating and maybe electing a black candidate).

Increasingly, Obama supporters have been disposed to cry foul and charge racism at nearly any criticism of him, in steadily more extravagant rhetoric.

The campaign’s accusation that the Clinton team made Obama look darker in a photo or video clip than he actually is—and what exactly are we to make of that as an accusation?—and the hysterically indignant reaction to Geraldine Ferraro’s statement that much of Obama’s success stems from the fact that “the country is caught up in the concept” of a black candidacy are no different from the campaign’s touting its “historic” character.

Obama supporters fulsomely attacked even Clinton’s attempts to portray him as inexperienced, which is standard fare in political campaigns.

They also charged that she was playing to racism. See most recently Harvard sociologist Lawrence Bobo’s characterization that she was “disrespecting” black people, a leftover canard from Jesse Jackson’s campaigns (which, lest amnesia overtake us, were also extolled as historic firsts).

More Here

Beloved Community

2008-05-09T12:02:00.001-05:00

Hillary bloggers you don't know about - join hands.

Feminist Bloggers Won't Quit

2008-05-09T11:40:00.007-05:00

Brilliant writing - evolving analysis

Riverdaughter (Confluence) on the Creative Class
Sometime Girls
and Are you telling me I turned...DD Ape?

Anglachel's Journal Revolution of the Saints

I DECIDED YOU DESERVE AN ENTRY ON THE CREATIVE CLASSES BY ONE OF THEIR OWN - THE DEFINITIVE STATEMENT - here it is - read it and be educated you bitterers.

Changing Of the Guard
by: Chris Bowers
Thu May 08, 2008 at 15:15

Just like Mike earlier today, I would also like to compliment Matt on his outstanding Obama's Consolidation of the Party article last night. Unlike the previous two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry, Obama has not only won the nomination campaign, but he has actually built a huge infrastructure within the party. The Obama infrastructure is enormous, and is the first intra-party movement to have surpassed the infrastructure built up by the Clintons over the past two decades.

The Dean movement from five years ago was the first major threat to the Clinton power base in the party, but only the Obama movement actually surpassed it. This build-up was a necessary move on Obama's party, since otherwise it would have been impossible to defeat Clinton in a grueling, virtually 50-state campaign.

So, unless Obama somewhat surprisingly does not become the next President of the United States, the Democratic Party will experience its first changing of the guard since the late 1980's. What differences will be in store? Here are the three major changes I expect:

Cultural Shift: Out with Bubbas, up with Creatives:

There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types.

Obama has all the markers of a creative class background, from his community organizing, to his Unitarianism, to being an academic, to living in Hyde Park to shopping at Whole Foods and drinking PBR.

These will be the type of people running the Democratic Party now, and it will be a big cultural shift from the white working class focus of earlier decades.

Given the demographics of the blogosphere, in all likelihood, this is a socioeconomic and cultural demographic into which you fit. Culturally, the Democratic Party will feel pretty normal to netroots types. It will consistently send out cultural signals designed to appeal primarily to the creative class instead of rich donors and the white working class.

Policy Shift: Out with the DLC, up with technocratic wonks.

My sense of Obama and his policy team is overwhelmingly one of technocratic, generally less overtly ideological professional policy types.

We should see a shift from the more corporate and triangulating policy focus of the Democratic Party in the 1990's, and see it replaced by whatever centrist, technocratic policies are the wonkish flavor of the month.

It will all be very oriented toward think-tank and academic types, and be reminiscent of policy making in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's. A sort of "technocratic liberalism" that will be less infuriating than DLC style governance, but still not overtly leftist.

Coalition reorganization: Out with party silos, in with squishy goo-goos.

In addition to a shift in culture and policy focus, I also expect a different approach to coalition building.

A long-standing Democrats approach of transactional politics with different issue and demographic silos in the party shift toward an emphasis on good government (goo goo) approaches.

We will see lots of emphasis on non-partisanship, ethics reform, election reform instead of on, say, placating labor unions, environment groups, and the LGBT community by throwing each of these groups a policy bone or two.

Now, the focus will be on broad, squishy fixes that are designed to appeal to several groups at once. George Lakoff wrote about this a couple months ago.

I know this is all pretty vague, but it does sum up my basic sense about the coming Obama administration and Democratic Party. Overall, instead feeling like Blue Dogs, Joe Lieberman and media pundits are running the party, it should feel kind of like PIRG, but a bit more right-wing, academic and well-to-do.

In other words, PIRG without seeming like DFHs run the show. That should be an upgrade from the 1990's, but expect quite a few times where progressives will need to take oppositional stances.

Chris Bowers :: Changing Of the Guard