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I’ve posted on this subject previously, but this is so critical–and it crystallizes so perfectly the absolutely fucking insane gap between rich and poor in Boston–that I can’t refrain. City Life Vita Urbana held another in a series of demonstrations last night in an attempt to get big-time Boston hotelier/restarateur Paul Roiff to end his own attempt to evict residents from 22 Princeton St in East Boston. They hit his hotel on Beacon St Friday night; last night, we gathered in front of his fancy-ass restaurant Teatro, next to Loews on the Common; tonight we’ll be at Mistral on Columbus Ave in the South End.

(Oh, about that hotel of his: rates START at $295–but include a “complimentary overnight shoe shine.” A burger’s a bit pricey at $16, but a bottle of Heidsieck Monopole, ‘Gout Americain’ is a bargain at $14,000. Yeah, you read that right).

Fuck that. PLEASE JOIN US TONIGHT!!!!!!!

[Here’s a slideshow from last night ]

Short video:

And an update just in from CLVU:

Continue reading No Nos Moverán

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Yesterday afternoon, former Republican Congressman and 2008 Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr had the audacity to say, “Waterboarding is torture.”  The reason it took audacity is that he was at CPAC, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.  He was promptly booed.

Instead of adhering to the Constitution or the Geneva Conventions, conservative ideological leaders and Republican leaders have decided to shoot for political expediency, stubbornness, and sadism.

Continue reading Bob Barr booed at CPAC for saying ‘waterboarding is torture’
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     Over the past several years, we’ve come to a place in our national political debate where a handful of issues have dominated the conversation over and over. Of these, there is one that most intrigues me: which party can lay true claim to upholding that most important of pillars of our culture: true American values. Republicans time and time again cry out about how they embody these values, how their brethren are that most patriotic of citizen, as American as apple pie, baseball, and the 4th of July. Democrats, for their part, barely ever enter the fray to claim that they hold American values dear, and instead spend most of their time attacking Republicans. I’d like to put forth that neither of these parties best represents the American values we hold so dear. Instead, I truly believe it is the Green Party that most closely matches the ideals and aspirations of the American people.

Continue reading Green Values Are American Values

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This piece was written as part of GreenChange Blog Action Day.  Learn more here.

I’m not going to pull any punches here.  I detest the two party system.  I believe that it undermines representative government.  It makes our government more responsive to corporations than to citizens.  It decreases the chances of progress and it results in many good ideas being shut out of the national political debate.

The limits imposed on this nation by the two party system are slowly leading to its demise.  Partisan gridlock in Washington, outright corruption, the absurd difficulty of kicking out incumbents, corporate control of Washington, and the infamous backwardness of many local governments (among many things) are all symptoms of this same disease.  And I do not use that language lightly.

Continue reading Thinking beyond the two party system
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The criminal, anti-democratic racket described in this NYT article is just the latest blatant display of greedy Wall Street manipulation of the global economy.

Dean Baker has a great summary of Goldman Sachs’ “savvy” track record in this Guardian/UK article. And don’t forget Matt Taibbi’s mind-boggling portrait in Rolling Stone of Goldman Sachs profiting from one self-created economic bubble after the other. And it was the finance industry who gave Scott Brown a big last-minute send-off to Washington, signaling their equal opportunity approach to looting.

I’m starting to think that a focus on unearthing the dirt behind Goldman Sachs and its political influence might shine some daylight on the criminal convergence of politics and economics at the start of the 21st century.  

Continue reading Obama praises a criminal racket as savvy, puts them in his Administration
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   A few thoughts on the essay by Jason at Open Media Boston on Jill Stein’s and Grace Ross’s quite different campaigns for governor:

  It’s not a question of either going for the gold – quixotically or not – in a statewide race or letting dozens of flowers bloom in local and state legislative races. An exemplary candidate like Jill Stein (I’m biased) running as standard-bearer of the Green-Rainbow Party can inspire people to run for lesser offices throughout the Commonwealth as GRP candidates. For one thing, she can appear at their campaign functions, helping both her own candidacy and theirs. If citizens show up out of mere curiosity or out of concern for the their future, if they catch the bug and act accordingly they expand a constricted field.  

Continue reading Not either/or