The Contagious Festival

Technical inspiration:

http://homepage.mac.com/onegoodmove2/movies/jl021606cheney.mov

It feels good to laugh.

Wake up - it's lunch time in the east!
My couple of buddies (who probably registered enough voters to make the difference in our double recount 126 vote margin gubernaturial race) & I will be having lunch with Maria Cantwell's campaign manager, who knows Dick & Karen well! We are ready to be recruited.
We had little stands at all the events for months, made sure everyone in all the clubs and bars were ready to vote. We are ready to roll for 2006 mid-term!!

I also agreed to do photos for Elizabeth's voter rights event with Bev Harris of Black Box Voting & other speakers, so we will report afterward. That is March 6th. Next Saturday are local caucusses as well.

OT but...mentioned by our pastor today and rather apropos I think to our task here:

"Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big."

Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect & city planner. (1864-1912)

...thoughts?

I have taken to emailing almost anyone who write anything I read that elicits any kind of visceral response in me. It's easy, they usually read it, and often they reply. It may not be an LTE but it's person-to-person feedback.

I belong to the American Speech Language & Hearing Association. Their "ASHA Leader" printed an article called "A Closer Look at Health Savings Accounts" but was a little easy on the Bush administration, considering that this idea is another health care ripoff.

I wrote to him:
Thanks for the article on HSAs ..but "consumer-driven health care" is such a euphemism and lie, like the rest of the Bush agenda. It's another sellout to big business under the guise of compassion, another oxymoron by a complete moron.

ASHA is primarily composed of women and a lot of the clientele are vulnerable - children, the elderly. I remember when ASHA would refuse to hold its convention in states which refused to ratify the ERA.

Let's get political. I realize a lot of practitioners are in "red states" but God forbid they should ever trust this administration.

My mother is a cancer survivor and former Republican but she refuses to sign up for Medicare Part D because she doesn't trust this administration.

Thanks for including the http://frameshopisopen.com link & for initiating this topic.

(I am from Seattle, where many of us have had Impeach Bush signs in our windows for 5 years.)

--Then I'm enlisting friends in same profession in other states to seriously get on this. Our professional organization should be F*ing lobbying against this shit in DC - they're located IN DC. We pay them dues and they need to do this for health care.

PS South Carolina may be recruiting people in order to have a fundamentalist Christian state. Colorado Springs already has almost such a thing!

So I am still recruiting people with progressive values to move to Seattle. We gained some during the dotcom boom and as California became too expensive, and we try to sign up foreign immigrants once they become citizens. We encourage students from out of state to locate here. We need more children in the city. We are also a good environment for musicians, gay couples and interracial couples and artists. We can always use more political activists, actors and poets. We can use more programmers, web developers, writers and cartoonists. Film makers are highly sought after as well. We have plenty of room, it's not that hard to find a job, especially if you're smart and flexible. Slowly the beige and gray houses are giving way to purples, oranges and greens. We have alot of good restaurants and would appreciate more, if your'e a good cook. We need more hikers, bikers, sailing enthusiasts and snowboarders. It doesn't really rain alot (but tell conservatives that it does). We need a higher population density so we can have more mass transit. We need more people in King County so maybe we can gain an extra legislator. & we need yet more political weight so we can avoid close races, manipulation and outside infiltration by GOP insurgents.

Here is proof that people actually want to move to Seattle:
http://www.43things.com/things/people/5898?view=done
http://www.city-data.com/forum/washington/657-want-move-washington-but-i-dont-know-where-move.html
http://forums.thestranger.com/showthread.php?s=e25daf9866514114ba5b123566539b17&p=11867
I say let them come, ifthey are progressive or convertible.
To be fair and balanced, here are people bitching about the weather.
http://civpro.blogs.com/civil_procedure/2005/05/remind_me_not_t.html

Totally OT, but....

I just lost a game of Monopoly to my kids. It's the first time I've played since becoming "enlightened" about reality in this country. The game is a fascinating example of the rich getting richer as the poor get poorer - for the benefit of the rich. And once you miss a chance to monopolize, it's down hill from then on.

Also interesting to watch personalities (of children) change as they get more and more money. I think BushCo. spent a few too many hours playing monopoly when they were kids.

I hated this game when I was a kid, too.

DiAnne,

Yes, every time I smell wet wool, I remember the Pacific Northwest...

(Actually, you know I'd move back there in a minute if we could have jobs and assure the return to democracy in this country!)

I am thinking about free speech today. In this morning's Washington Post (http://tinyurl.com/qgvk3), the beloved Colman McCarthy (who practiucally invented Peace Studies) is under attack from students at one oif the high schools he teaches at.

"I know I'm not the first to bring this up but why has there been no concerted effort to remove Peace Studies from among the B-CC courses?" he wrote in his post to the school's group e-mail list. "The 'class' is headed by an individual with a political agenda, who wants to teach students the 'right' way of thinking by giving them facts that are skewed in one direction."

the article continues:

For his part, McCarthy, 67, finds the students' objections a bit puzzling. He said that although the two sat in on a recent class, they have not talked to him in depth about their concerns.

"I've never said my views are right and theirs are wrong," he said about the students who take his course. "In fact, I cherish conservative dissenters. I wish we could get more of them in."

*****

The ACLU webite says:

The First Amendment exists precisely to protect the most offensive and controversial speech from government suppression. The best way to counter obnoxious speech is with more speech. Persuasion, not coercion, is the solution.

*****

So I've been thinking: Are we getting closer to book banning? Or are we beginning to understand what is happening around here yet? Can we organize to combat ignorance and narrow-mindedness? Or do we have to learn--again--the hard way?

Off to ponder all this...

Carol
Good observations about Monopoly!
Capitalism is completely glorified in this country - "it's a dog eat dog world" etc.

I'm reading & coming across alot of protest rallies - Pakistanis in the streets about the cartoon violence still, Iraq is totally out of control, Afghanistan has an actual prison riot going on, Phillipines almost had a coup but it didn't happen because coups are secret and this everyone knew about, Thailand rally led by a large number of Buddhist priests and nuns, and then a big antihate rally in Paris & elsewhere in France, and I almost forgot the few neoNazis and several hundred counterprotesters in Orlando.

The thing I notice about the French rally - it's like here. Organizers claim 200,000+ marched in the streets (it's already evening there) & officials say 33,000 people. Deja vu. I need to try to check some of these out via webcams, like we used to do for antiwar rallies.

It's sad to think that so many people are disgruntled that they need to take to the streets. I think every country I mentioned has leaders that are unpopular with regular people.

Karen
I pondered that earlier (are we getting closer to book burning). I read an article that was posted on here in which Rumsfeld provided his input into the Cyber Storm simulation exercise by the government. Bloggers were involved in the simulation and Rumsfeld said some scary things.

Then I went to some professional computer sites in US and UK and also to some nerdy blogs, to see what people in the industry had to say (not that I understood more than 1/3 max). It then didn't seem as scary. Yes the government does engage in psyop and propaganda and they admit it. Rumsfeld refers to it as being "proactive." Reading the techie guys was reassuring though.

Remember that Bill Gates didn't even finish college. Bush made C's at Yale. The government hires alot of people and it wastes alot of money, while running a deficit and saying it can't afford essentials like health and education (other than primitively basic). If the government does alot of suppression, there will be strange leaks. If the government collects a glut of data, they will be too inept to make sense of it. They'll do some incredibly blundering things and soem people will get caught in the middle, but if they ever make a police state, smart people will find ways around it.

Veritas,

I live in the Chicago area, and that quote is well known. Perhaps it is why this is much more of a progressive region than most of the country (a Democratic Governor, Mayor and two Senators). Still the collar counties, as they are called, are very Republican, but changing to more progressive candidates. Our local Congressional race for the sixth Congressional district from Illinois features three Democrats vying for the opportunity to run against a Tom DeLay hand picked Republican. The seat is open as Henry Hyde has decided to retire. HIs retirement in no small part was forced by one of the candidates, Christine Cegelis, who ran against him in the last election and gained 44% of the vote. That is the closest any challenger had ever come. She decided to keep her campaign organization operating after the election and built an incredibly powerful grass roots organization. She has focused her campaign not only Bushco mistakes, but also the future. She has proposed ideas to improve the lives of all Americans and especially residents of the sixth district. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) decided that perhaps her approach was too grand for the citizens in this area and launched their own candidate - Tammy Duckworth. Not unexpectedly, there has been an onslaught of robocalls and five color mailings arriving nearly everyday. However Duckworth's campaign has not caught on. The other candidate is a professor at Wheaton College and reminds me of James Wallace, the author of God's Politics. He is an honorable and decent man. Also he has financed his campaign by taking out a $60K second mortgage on his home.

All three are certainly better candidates than Peter Roskum (the Republican). All three have dreamed big and grand things - each in their own way. They are in stark contrast to Roskum who reperesents stagnant politics that enriches those who need benefits the least. Yes, that quote is well known in these parts and we are very proud of it.

Just got this in an email:

Friday, February 24, 2006

Lance Dickie / Seattle Times editorial columnist

And the elephant you rode in on

Anti-gay ballot measures and terrorism alerts on full, throbbing magenta will not be enough to save Republicans from themselves in November.

They will lose regionally and nationally because their usual supporters are being driven into the arms of Democrats.

The incompetence and arrogance of the Bush administration combined with an ineffective, indifferent Republican Congress is pushing the nation toward divided government as a safety valve.

Message-thin Democrats will not accrue any bragging rights, because voters will not be electing them. This is entirely about getting rid of corrupt, self-absorbed Republicans.

Voters know they can rely on Democrats to challenge the White House; the GOP has not and will not. It is that simple.

Take financing for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration wants another $72 billion for this year. Total cost to date: somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 billion. That is an expensive neighborhood. As soon as the calendar rolls over on a new fiscal year, the White House is expected to request $50 billion more.

So how is the country covering this bill? Mostly, it is not, and the accounting is off-budget and fuzzy. Those epic deficits run up by the administration do not reflect the cost of waging war and reconstruction.

Where does the money come from? Mostly from selling debt to China and others — and from thousands of scandalous cuts to domestic budgets in the name of fiscal prudence. Take the $2 billion paid to rural communities to help cover the economic hit from reduced logging on federal land. The money is disappearing, and school districts, county governments and hospitals will feel the pinch.

The Bush administration eagerly forgoes royalty payments from oil companies and gives away scads of cash to pharmaceuticals in the Medicare prescription-pill debacle, but it has real financial and philosophical quandaries about student loans.

Hardworking Americans will not catch a break from this administration on health care, and they know it.

Republicans in Congress are mute and complacent. Time after time, they have aided and abetted the political crime.

Ask hard questions about how the administration handled intelligence leading to the invasion of Iraq? No. Challenge the White House about domestic spying? Not in any credible way.

Corruption is rampant. Congressional and administration officials are under indictment. The shame of Washington state, or most certainly the 4th Congressional District, is the compliant role of Rep. Doc Hastings, the erstwhile chairman of the House Ethics Committee. Picked to do nothing, he reliably lived up to expectations. His constituents ought to be mortified. Find another Republican, but one with some self-respect.

Americans have been shamed by behaviors in U.S.-run military prisons in Iraq and Guantánamo. Even ickier things were apparently outsourced to despots overseas.

The administration mangles the Constitution as badly as the president mangles syntax. Here is a presidency that makes up the rules as it goes along, blithely arguing it meets the law. Need an explanation? Look for a note initialed GWB in an Oval Office drawer.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, I took the president's references to the war on terrorism as rhetorical flourishes. Silly me. He was purposefully articulating a view of operational independence above and beyond the influence of the other branches of government.

Ordinary citizens who might spit out the letters A-C-L-U recognize that fundamental checks and balances of democracy are crumbling as Republicans yawn.

Layer that on top of searing revelations of basic competence. Hurricane Katrina broke the civic covenant with voters. They saw an administration and Congress without the capacity or interest to govern.

Vice President Cheney will say or do anything. And deny it.

The November election is not about blindly embracing Democrats, though even true conservatives have to be honest about how much worse it could get. Are Democrats going to start a war and run up huge deficits? No way; the GOP already has that covered.

~etc.

Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002825013_lance24.html

Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at February 26, 2006 03:19 PM

Tiny URL for the above referenced post from the Seattle times is:

http://tinyurl.com/lj5jw

Sorreeee. I thought the original URL would fit.

this just in:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606X.shtml

We are marching on March 14 for trailers for Katrina victims.

Apparently, a number of these trailers are sitting tantalizingly out of reach.

Truth Shall Prevail
Interesting commentary from Seattle Times. I hadn't read it yet.

Karen
Related..I just got this.
Huge March Planned for Eve of Katrina Evictions
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606X.shtml
A march had been planned for February 28th, the eve of the scheduled March 1st evictions of Hurricane Katrina victims. If Bush does not meet the marchers' demands, however, many plan not to leave.

Also just met Matt - what a sweetie. Obama and later JK will be coming. We (me, Ben Doko, Josh) are going to get involved. We all picked each other's brains and it was just like you can imagine. I had prawns stuffed with crabmeat.
Thanks for making this possible, even though it's taken almost 2 months for us here to finally make it happen. We brought memorabilia. Ben had photos w/JK & THK in Boston at his birthday, I had older ones from here in 2003 and 2004, my "Tour of Duty" book with all the autographs, & photo Dick took of me last night of DNC convention, autograph by JK of Bush with forked tongue and last but not least, talking Dean doll that also screams and has a Confederate flag on his shirt. Also, Matt recognized me because I was wearing a "4JKB4IA" button on my jacket!

http://www.herald-sun.com/orange/10-705951.html

A local Chapel Hill group is working to impeach. (A democracy cell in action! lol)

The eternal burning question:

Why Can't We Find Osama?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606A.shtml
When President Bush lands in Islamabad later this week, it may be the closest he ever comes to being in the same neighborhood as Osama bin Laden. But his nemesis, the US, will be no closer to ascertaining bin Laden's location.

Dahr Jamail | Who Benefits?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606B.shtml
Interpreting the violent eruptions in Iraq, Dahr Jamail asks the most important question regarding the bombings of the Golden Mosque in Samarra: who benefits?

In Iraq, Fighting Is with Political Context
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606G.shtml
Current US military commanders say they have come to understand that they are fighting within a political context, with US forces trying to exercise tactical patience and shift responsibilities to Iraqi forces, even as they worry that the American public's patience may be dwindling.

This one overlaps with the one from the New Yorker called "The Memo" that gave me nightmares:

The New York Times | A Judicial Green Light for Torture
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606C.shtml
The administration's tendency to dodge accountability for lawless actions by resorting to secrecy and claims of national security is on sharp display in the case of a Syrian-born Canadian, Maher Arar, who spent months being tortured because of United States actions, according to the New York Times.

Alert: Wedge Issue - Involving my other home state

Sizing Up the Opposing Armies in the Coming Abortion Battle
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606D.shtml
Beyond the borders of South Dakota and its fewer than 800,000 residents, no one pays much attention to the long list of bills to restrict abortion that the state's legislators ponder nearly every year. But last week, when they passed the most sweeping abortion ban in the country in more than a decade, the reverberations reached far beyond quiet Pierre.

Just because we're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get us!

Justice Department Rejects Google's Privacy Issues
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606E.shtml
Google Inc.'s concerns that a Bush Administration demand to examine millions of its users' Internet search requests would violate privacy rights are unwarranted, the Justice Department said Friday in a court filing.

More corruption & can't say I'm sorry for him:

For Ken Lay, Enron's Riches Turning to Ruin
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606F.shtml
Once at the pinnacle of Houston's financial and political elite with a fortune worth as much as $400 million, Mr. Lay, the former chairman of the Enron Corporation, is now facing financial ruin.

Speaking of paranoid, I also learned from a Canadian paper that a 'Great Wall of Canada' has been proposed. What's next? We can't leave the country, like the old USSR?

US Proposes 'Great Wall of Mexico'
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606H.shtml
A proposal to build a double set of steel walls with floodlights, surveillance cameras and motion detectors along one-third of the US-Mexican border heads to the Senate next month after winning overwhelming support in the House.

Well,
If the Great Wall of Mexico is built, hopefully somewhere south of Crawford, a narrow sliver will surround the "ranch" where the supreme nitwit in residence lives.
On second thought, turning Bush loose on the poor Mexicans is cruel and unusual punishment to our southern neighbors. Maybe make the Crawford ranch part of GITMO. Then Bush can see what love with a club is all about.

Posted by: battlebob at February 26, 2006 05:35 PM

Yeah, that would put a whole new meaning into "reach out and touch someone".

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606X.shtml

~ * ~ ***** ~ * ~

We are marching on March 14 for trailers for Katrina victims.

Apparently, a number of these trailers are sitting tantalizingly out of reach.

Posted by: karen at February 26, 2006 04:54 PM

Right on!

woops,

that should have been

~ * ~ ***** ~ * ~

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022606X.shtml

We are marching on March 14 for trailers for Katrina victims.

Apparently, a number of these trailers are sitting tantalizingly out of reach.

Posted by: karen at February 26, 2006 04:54 PM

Right on!

New Action Alert posting from ralpheh in the forum...

http://www.democracycellproject.net/forum/index.php?showforum=121

You guys are so gonna upset V!

Here's the information Nolie wrote about after interviewing v in the irc chat.

http://www.progressiveu.org/160000-what-next-for-katrina-refuges

And then the lower thread has a portion from our own blog that someone posted there.

http://www.progressiveu.org/165726-what-me-worry-kitty-genovese-and-katrina

Posted by: dwahzon at February 26, 2006 06:39 PM

I just got that same action request in my email. Actually, it quite depresses me. I really in the deepest part of my heart can not believe not funding "one more penny" is the answer.

I'd like some responses on why this is the right move to make. Because I really don't believe I can support this!

I want the troops out of Iraq but I don't believe this action will bring them home.

Feel free to kindly post responses because I am trying very hard to not fall into the trap about "not supporting our troops" but there must be a better plan than just withholding funds.

Posted by: sparrow at February 26, 2006 06:40 PM

I thought I recalled that topic being covered. Veritas did post at some length on this thread...

See: Posted by: Veritas at February 11, 2006 08:49 AM

on this thread...
http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2006/02/hanging_togethe.html

Dw,

I can't the posting for 2/11 8:49 A.M. I see the 8:46 and 9:09 posts.

Oncall, it's near the very bottom of the thread... 4th post from the bottom to be precise.

Posted by: dwahzon at February 26, 2006 07:09 PM

Yeh, she did but I didn't know where it was on the blog or when the conversation on the blog occured. Thanks for finding it.

I understand what the regulations have been for the Katrina victims--the sections cited do not take into account the incompetent inability to provide for extraordinary circumstances (relative of a colleague still taking their house apart--for the third time--for mold).

One size regulations do not fit very many...

Hello everybody!

I apologize for the veering off topic and this may have been addressed in prior threads. I was ecstatic to learn of the March issue of Harpers is 'Impeach Him'.

http://www.harpers.org/

There is also a very sobering 'cartoon' that may be viewed by clicking on this link.

Truth shall prevail...one day.

Andrea

By Robert Fisk
Everyone in the Middle East rewrites history, but never before have we had a US administration so wilfully, dishonestly and ruthlessly reinterpreting tragedy as success, defeat as victory, death as life - helped, I have to add, by the compliant American press. - We are pushing hundreds of thousands of Arabs though the butchers' shops - and don't even care.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12083.htm

War In Error
By Andrew J. Bacevich
As far as official Washington is concerned, the nameless, faceless dead of Damadola are already forgotten. Our warrior-president will continue to insist that we have no choice but to press on, seemingly blind to the moral havoc wreaked by his war and oblivious to the extent to which he is playing into the hands of our adversaries.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12071.htm

American Government: Heading Toward Disintegration and Collapse
By Charles Mercieca, Ph.D.
It is very obvious that this capitalistic nation is concerned merely with the financial interests of big corporations and nothing else matters, not even the very health and life of the American people. Its top priority is to cater to special interests.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12074.htm

'Public Court' Holds Bush Guilty of Perpetrating Terrorism
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0226-04.htm

Thomas Wilner | Guantanamo: American Gulag
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0226-20.htm

Pentagon: Iraqi Troops Downgraded
'http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0225-06.htm
{{{Raise your hand if you also think not adequately training Iraqi soldiers is a good "excuse" to keep American military forces in Iraq....}}}

Gary Allen Scott | In the Fall Election Campaigns, Democrats Must Challenge the Republicans on National Security
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0226-28.htm

Acid Seas Kill Off Coral Reefs
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0226-06.htm

Mexican Border Wall Plan Seen as U.S. Conceit
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0226-05.htm
{{{Another author writing about the same topic as the truthout link posted above. I see this idiotic idea as yet another proposal that would be a monumental waste of taxpayer money and an environmental hazard for wildlife that does not recognize artificial borders made by human beings (which is why I think legislators may actually pass legislation in favor of it!). And, in view of the "detention centers" [concentration camps] Halliburton is building on US soil, would these dumb artificial walls keep immigrants out... or US citizens from escaping a Bu$h dictatorship....? What prompts legislators to actually think of such monumentally stupid and ineffectual ideas...?}}}

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/international/26bagram.html
A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantánamo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060226/ts_afp/nigeriaoilshelljusticeenvironment
Shell locked in bitter legal battle over pollution in Nigeria

morning--new thread, new Five Minutes A Day, new week to get going--