The shameful debt ceiling flap that has embroiled Washington in recent weeks has left the American people wondering if they can trust any of their current political leaders to do the right thing.
Continue reading WARNING: WASHINGTON IS NOT ON OUR SIDEThom Friedman introduces AmericansElect in today’s New York Times.
I have no idea whether this “national referendum” kind of thing has or could have any legs whatsoever–if nothing else, it’s an extremely unwieldy way of identifying a “candidate,” much less getting into campaign mode, and probably just reflects dismay with all the parties currently in existence. The two major parties are clearly not delivering–leastways not to their consitutents, and not in the way voters would like; and existing alterna-parties are far too radical in their own right to ever attract the kind of plurality needed to have any real influence on their own (otherwise, by now, they would have; but they shed at the same rate they attact. Or in the case of of some state organizations, at far higher clip.)
But as I’ve suggested before, the age of traditional parties in the US (which would include Green, Libertarian, Reform, etc) may be drawing to a close. Sloowly, to be sure, but my guess is that defections from the two mainstream Parties are likely to land most exiles in the ranks of Independents, not simply different ideologically-driven organizations. And up-and-coming generations are bored with the endless parade of white-guys-in-suits (struck again looking at the team assembled behind John Boehner when he gave his latest statement; it might as well have been 1950) spewing canned rhetoric, and turned off by the equally dated sixties-style rhetoric and identity politics blame-casting emanating from the further reaches of the left.
As the curtain comes down on “The American Century” and the electorate is forced to change not their simply their lifestyles but their aspirations and consciousness of what it means to be an “American,” politics is likely to be more volatile than ever. The alternative proferred by Friedman in this peace sounds attracive at first glance, but also seems to open a very wide door to populist demagogues of the scary variety.
Continue reading Not a Third Party … But a Third Candidate?Chapter 2
Keystone Cops Strike Again
A Luta Continua
By Chuck Turner
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
A) Narrative:
On November 21, 2008, at 6:16 a.m. I was confronted in my office at City Hall by 10 white men and women, some in police uniforms. One of them barked at me, “Hang up the phone”. I had been talking with my wife, Terri, who had called me 10 minutes earlier, saying that the FBI had just come to our house to arrest me. My first response was “Well it finally happened” and we both laughed since Terri had been saying for years that my political work would result in my being killed or put in jail.
My second response was “Why are they going to arrest me.” She said she didn’t know and went on to say that they forced their way into the house when she told them that I had left for work. She was still relating her experience with them when the FBI accompanied by Boston Police burst into my office and ordered me to hang up the phone.
The large officer at the edge of my desk who had told me to hang up the phone, then ordered me to stand up and put my hands behind my back. As I followed his instructions, I started to laugh which infuriated him. “What are you laughing at?”, he shouted. I replied, “You would never understand”.
The situation was obviously a serious one. At the same time these ten “public safety officers” standing around me in my small office getting ready to handcuff a 68 year old, black, 9 year City Councilor, and lifelong activist seemed so ludicrous that I couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed that somehow I was playing a part in a grade C detective movie or perhaps even a Keystone Cops movie.
Continue reading Chapter 2 Keystone Cops Strike Again By Chuck TurnerPeter Vickery gave me chills today, when he painted the picture of what will happen on October 18th this fall, when Mark C. Miller becomes the first-ever Green-Rainbow Party candidate elected to the State House. Mark, who received an extraordinary 45% of the vote against an incumbent Democrat in his first time running for office, spending just over $3,000, would raise $20,000 this go-round, and run a 90-day sprint to reach the 4,000 Unenrolled voters in his district.
Mark followed up this grand introduction by pointing out one key difference from his 2010 run — this time he’d have a campaign manager, Peter Vickery. He then proceeded to outline what he was struggling with as a candidate, and what he was yearning to bring to the 3rd Berkshire District. And there was no simple rhetoric available to him, no campaign playbook for messaging his vision for Pittsfield, the Berkshires, and the Commonwealth. He is looking to run a transformative campaign, sparking the economic, cultural, and political transformation that Pittsfield and the rest of the state is burning for.
Transformation is what we need, and Mark’s victory will indeed be a transformative act. It’s easily within our grasp if we rise to this exciting — joyous was Mark’s word — 90-day challenge and make it happen.
Part of the challenge will be communicating the idea of a transformative campaign in a way that connects with the average voter in Pittsfield, and re-connects with those who have given up on the political system entirely. It will be a crowded field for this open seat, and there’s a mountain to climb to win it. But we have 93 days in which to do it. 93 days to change Massachusetts politics forever.
Continue reading 93 days to transform Massachusetts politicsLocal Green Paki Weiland makes a cameo in this Democracy Now! report on the Greek government’s intervention blocking civilian ships from leaving Greek ports to travel to Gaza:
Paki was arrested twice for fasting and protesting the U.S Embassy and the U.S. Ambassador to Greece, and her story and that of the Greek intervention was picked up in The Daily Hampshire Gazette and The Republican. From the Gazette:
The Canadian vessel in the fleet, “Tahrir,” was detained off the coast of Crete and returned to port on Monday. The Irish and Norwegian boats were sabotaged when their propeller shafts were cut before setting sail. The activists asserted that Israel was behind the sabotage, but the Israeli Embassy in Dublin denied those claims.
Additionally, Greek protesters rallying against austerity measures in Syntagma Square in Athens have taken up the flotilla’s cause and organized a march to support the effort to reach Gaza.
Interesting times!
Continue reading The Audacity of DefianceThe New Economics Institute, in lead-up to the 100th Anniversary of writer and philosopher E.F. Schumacher’s birth on August 16th, sent out excerpts from a 2008 essay about Schumacher’s relevance today:
“The Relevance of E. F. Schumacher in the 21st Century”
By John FullertonOur global economic system is broken not because of the credit crisis; it is broken because it is predicated on perpetual, resource driven growth with no recognition of scale limitations.
What we are not hearing, at least in the mainstream media, is a critical reframing of the questions that address root causes….. We are not hearing a debate about the sustainability of a perpetually growing global economic system nested within our finite biosphere. We are not hearing a debate about the wisdom of allowing financial power (and systemic risk) to be increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few financial institutions of increasing complexity and scale. We are not publicly questioning the wisdom of the system we have allowed to evolve in response to capital’s quest for ever increasing financial returns. Nor are we debating where to look for creative responses.
However, nothing could be more important at this critical time. What we must grasp is that the financial crisis we are reacting to is but a cyclical side show to the bigger issues we face regarding the sustainability of our economic system. We should see the present financial crisis as a wake up call to this far greater challenge. We should search with an open mind for the wisdom we need to transition our economic system onto a sustainable path, grounded in ecological reality, with a respect for human justice and a deep appreciation for all life.
Continued after the jump
Continue reading Toward a post-modern (post-materialist) economic theoryFrom Max Page of PHENOM (Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts):
Continue reading The Massachusetts Budget – brought to you by the Democratic PartyThe Massachusetts Budget – A Work of Shame
Democrats all – the Speaker, Senate President, and Governor – are patting themselves on the back for passing a budget that had three main features: crushing cuts to virtually every aspect of state government that services regular people, a major attack on public employee unions and their collective bargaining rights, and – best for last – not a dime of “shared sacrifice” from the wealthiest in our state.Yes, those “crazy liberals” from Massachusetts have for the third year of this recession failed to ask for a single dime of “share sacrifice” – the favorite phrase of the political class who seek to undermine government and its duty to enrich our public life and lift up the neediest in our society – from those who have the most in our society. The last time the state raised taxes, what did it do? It raised the wrong tax – the sales tax – the one that is most regressive, affecting the poor more than the wealthy. And before the budget debate even began this year, those good Democratic leaders decided that no amount of cuts to libraries, schools, parks, services for the mentally ill would be painful enough to get them to violate the sacred commitment to the wealthy – no tax increases.
We have a bill to raise $1.4 billion a year, mainly from the wealthiest in our state. See ourcommunities.org. Now we just need the movement to get our “representatives” to see the light.
-Max Page
P.S. Public higher education was cut by $60 million, and financial aid by another $2 million. The catalogue of shame is detailed at our reliable friend, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.
So: a Green Party Local is promoting a fundraising event (if I’m not mistaken) for Cynthia McKinney to allow her to go on another “fact-finding” junket to Libya.
This is disheartening to say the least. Was a time when Greens would have been PROTESTING outside a hall where a speaker was defending a dictator. Seems it’s okay to be a dictator, a thug, and a sadist when s/he opposes US imperialism. Or to suggest that the jaw-dropping words Ms McKinney recently spake were not her own (Cynthia’s long history of anti-semitic remarks and associations, along with other zaniness, should suggest that any crackpot statements are MORE than likely to have come from her own mouth! For example, she is also quite smitten with Mugabe:
Continue reading Cynthia McKinney’s Love-Letter to Muammar: A Reason to Boycott her AppearanceReflections from Behind the Wall
Anatomy of a Frame Up – Chapter 1
A Lifetime of Service
A Luta Continua
By Chuck Turner
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
This is the first of eight chapters in which I discuss my two and a half year experience with the Justice Department that has led to my being a convicted felon at the work camp at USP Hazelton, Bruceton Mills, West Virginia.
My first reaction was that I was dreaming; no, I was having a nightmare but I couldn’t wake up. After a lifetime of fighting for justice, I was in handcuffs being led out of City Hall. I didn’t even know what I was being accused of. Later, it became all too clear, not only from the prosecutor describing me as a corrupt politician but also from the newspaper headlines the next morning screaming that I had been indicted for conspiracy to extort money from a local community business man and lying about it to the FBI.
How could this happen? I knew I hadn’t done what they said but there were the camera trucks in front of our house. Reporters knocking at the door, urging me to talk to them as if it was my responsibility to answer their questions. Sure, they were just doing their job but they were part of an establishment that I had been fighting for decades. Yet, here they were ridiculing me, mocking me, gloating over my alleged hypocrisy. I felt like Alice in Wonderful and I had no idea how to get out of the rabbit hole.
Continue reading Chuck Turner’s Story–Chapter 1: A Lifetime of ServiceThis summer Common Cause Massachusetts is hosting a citizen redistricting competition for the state of Massachusetts. Entrants will have the chance to submit their own Congressional, State House, and State Senate maps to be reviewed by a panel of experts. Winners will receive a cash prize and the opportunity to send their maps to the legislature.
Check out this link for more information:
http://will-to-justice.blogspo…
Email redistricma@gmail.com with any questions or submissions.
Continue reading Redistricting Olympics