Although a denomination may not, by law, be involved in candidate campaigns, many of us are working to -- in President Sinkford's words, "reclaim our democracy." But we as individuals do not feel that getting out the vote is enough. We want to get out the vote and rebuild the Democratic Party, and bring the religious left to bear against the forces of the religious right.
"...Unemployed people get into trouble. They go into politics or crime."
-- Software engineer Rohit Johri, commenting in the LA Times on why US work outsourced to Bangalore is making India a better place (and by extension, fomenting unrest here? ;)
I can testify to the "politics" part from *intimate* experience, m'self...!
This little flash backgrounder illustrates some of the stances of Bush and Kerry on some of the major issues of the campaign.
Of course, the stances are woefully abbreviated on both sides. I wish they had put more thought into the differences on Iraq and foreign policy, for example. But it's a good snapshot to begin your undecided friends with....
Quoted in this opinion piece on the Guantanamo detainee decision from the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor speaks:
It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.
The new NYTimes/CBS poll says
President Bush's job approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll found Americans stiffening their opposition to the Iraq war, worried that the invasion could invite domestic terrorist attacks and skeptical about whether the White House has been fully truthful about the war or about abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison.
A majority of respondents in the poll, conducted before yesterday's transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government, said that the war was not worth its cost in American lives and that the Bush administration did not have a clear plan to restore order to Iraq.
The survey, which showed Mr. Bush's approval rating at 42 percent, also found that nearly 40 percent of Americans say they do not have an opinion about Senator John Kerry, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, despite what have been both parties' earliest and most expensive television advertising campaigns.
Among those who do have an opinion, Mr. Kerry is disliked more than he is liked. More than 50 percent of respondents said that Mr. Kerry says what he thinks voters want to hear, suggesting that Mr. Bush has had success in portraying his opponent as a flip-flopper.
In a Guardian report of an event I'll wager won't see any US coverage, Kerry is seeing great support from the US expat community:
In a handsome Kabul garden Franklin the Democrat Donkey gamely posed with the aid workers, UN staff and business people who had gathered to explain why they were backing the Massachusetts senator.
The Kabul event is one of many taking place outside the United States.
Iraq and Cambodia are amongst more than 70 countries where expat Democratic party supporters are organising to help Mr Kerry reach the White House.
"It shows there's fantastic support for John Kerry here in Kabul and I'm sure all across Afghanistan," said Karen Hirschfeld, an aid worker from Mr Kerry's home state.
Ms Hirschfeld works for an organisation dependent on US government funds, but she said that this did not present a problem.
"The great thing about America is that we live in a democracy, we are allowed to choose our presidential candidates as we see fit," she said.
"There is evidence there is a large percentage of Americans who want a change in both foreign and domestic policy.
So I feel quite comfortable working within a democracy to foster change."
She said she was not surprised that many Americans in Kabul did not support George Bush.
"I think that people working in the expat community are often very savvy about foreign affairs and I think that a lot of us here understand that the policies of the Bush administration has done nothing but alienate us from the rest of the world and it's time to reconnect."
Sharon Manitta of Democrats Abroad said that there are now committees of the organisation in 28 different countries and committees being formed in a further 43, including Iraq and Cambodia.
Monty Python veteran Terry Jones, in the Guardian, picks up parenting advice from Donald Rumsfeld:
For some time now, I've been trying to find out where my son goes after choir practice. He simply refuses to tell me. He says it's no business of mine where he goes after choir practice and it's a free country.
Now it may be a free country, but if people start going just anywhere they like after choir practice, goodness knows whether we'll have a country left to be free. I mean, he might be going to anarchist meetings or Islamic study groups. How do I know?
The thing is, if people don't say where they're going after choir practice, this country is at risk. So I have been applying a certain amount of pressure on my son to tell me where he's going. To begin with I simply put a bag over his head and chained him to a radiator. But did that persuade him? Does the Pope eat kosher?
My wife had the gall to suggest that I might be going a bit too far. So I put a bag over her head and chained her to the radiator. But I still couldn't persuade my son to tell me where he goes after choir practice.
I tried starving him, serving him only cold meals and shaving his facial hair off, keeping him in stress positions, not turning his light off, playing loud music outside his cell door - all the usual stuff that any concerned parent will do to find out where their child is going after choir practice. But it was all to no avail.
I hesitated to gravitate to harsher interrogation methods because, after all, he is my son. Then Donald Rumsfeld came to my rescue.
I read in the New York Times last week that a memo had been prepared for the defence secretary on March 6 2003. It laid down the strictest guidelines as to what is and what is not torture. Because, let's face it, none of us want to actually torture our children, in case the police get to hear about it.
The March 6 memo, prepared for Mr Rumsfeld explained that what may look like torture is not really torture at all. It states that: if someone "knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent even though the defendant did not act in good faith".
What this means in understandable English is that if a parent, in his anxiety to know where his son goes after choir practice, does something that will cause severe pain to his son, it is only "torture" if the causing of that severe pain is his objective. If his objective is something else - such as finding out where his son goes after choir practice - then it is not torture.
Mr Rumsfeld's memo goes on:...
So Cheney confronts Pat Leahy on his comments on Halliburton, and Leahy retorts that he doesn't enjoy Cheney labelling him as a "bad Catholic" based on his voting record, and Cheney lets loose with the F-word at the junior Senator from Vermont.
"So what?" you say. It's nothing you wouldn't expect from most people when things get heated.
Something I haven't seen in ANY of the news reports on this -- probably because journalists are too damn ignorant to remember it -- is that Cheney as VP is *PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE* and his animosity to a particular member of the Senate is tantamount to harassment.
As WorldIQ observes in their description of the VP's role:
As President of the Senate (Article I, Section 3), the Vice President oversees procedural matters and is given the ability to cast a vote in the event of a tie. There is a strong convention within the U.S. Senate that the Vice President not use his position as President of the Senate to influence the passage of legislation or act in a partisan manner, except in the case of breaking tie votes. In fact, the Vice President is constitutionally prevented from voting except in the case of ties.
The AP reports strange bedfellows in Oregon:
Two conservative groups have been phoning people around Oregon this week, urging them to attend Ralph Nader's convention Saturday in hopes of putting Nader's name on Oregon's presidential ballot.
The groups make no bones about their goal - to draw votes away from Democrat John Kerry and help President Bush win this battleground state in November.
"We disagree with Ralph Nader's politics, but we'd love to see him make the ballot," said Russ Walker of Citizens for a Sound Economy, a group best known for its opposition to tax increases.
The Oregon Family Council also has been working the phones to boost attendance at Nader's event - with the idea that it could help Bush this fall.
"We aren't bashful about doing it," said Mike White, the group's director. "We are a conservative, pro-family organization, and Bush is our guy on virtually every issue."
[snip]
The head of Nader's Oregon campaign, Greg Kafoury, said he's had no contact with the two conservative groups that have been calling people this week. But he said he's not bothered by their actions, either.
I'm not sure that that is the straightforward message Ralph Nader gave to NPR in this 11+ minute audio interview. But the headline is NPR's so I'll keep it, even though it represents manipulation of Nader's message by NPR... I never heard that quote in his interview.
Nader confirms in the interview that he is a manipulative man. Where he says he "owes it to his volunteers" to run in the swing states where he has support, his supporters are not considering him to be running to "refine" the message of the Democrats, and few of them -- I suspect -- will vote for Kerry.
His attitude is disingenuous. He is trying to please everyone, to show that he is passionate to his base, and to show that he is politically sophisticated to the press. He's not "flip-flopping" -- he has developed a strategy that insists that you accept his inconsistencies as virtues.
I think he is very much self-deluding on this.
He says he needs to run for office to have the same voice in public affairs he had as an activist in years past. Could this be because he doesn't understand modern media? The man still writes on a manual typewriter, and avoids computers entirely.
Nader in 2004 -- unsafe at any speed.
*sigh*
OK, so this is really getting absurd...
As reported in the Seattle Times, among others:
The Senate voted yesterday to substantially increase fines for broadcast indecency, responding to months of public outrage over racy radio and television broadcasts that culminated with the exposure of one of Janet Jackson's breasts during the CBS telecast of the Super Bowl halftime show in January.
An amendment attached to a Defense Department authorization bill likely to be voted upon today would give the Federal Communications Commission authority to increase the maximum fine for each incident of broadcast indecency from $275,000 to as much as $3 million a day.
The House has passed a similar bill that would set fines at $500,000. Differences between the two bills must be worked out.
The Rocky Mountain News quotes Kerry at a Colorado fundraiser earlier this week:
"I know a lot of you are nervous and questioning and sort of wondering what's going to happen these next days in my future," Kerry told a packed Westin ballroom. "So I thought, as a result of my Aspen experience . . . (to) offer you four words to put you at ease: Vice President Hunter Thompson."
Well, 48 votes won't carry the election, but when all 45 are Nobel Laureates endorsing Kerry, maybe that will bring a few more votes along with them.
I am so disgusted. Here's the note I just dropped at Nader's web site:
At the Howard Zinn biopic yesterday, in front of the Cinema 21 Theater on NW 21st in Portland, a young woman handed me a flyer (and a poster with the same info was posted inside) that claimed that "Kerry and Bush both support...pre-emptive war." As a Kerry supporter I was outraged. Kerry has been SLAMMED by the right:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040217-084607-5853r.htm
...for categorically denying the doctrine of pre-emption. How can you spread this stuff with a straight face?
The young woman told me to come to your website for corroboration. Please PUT UP OR SHUT UP. I am about to write to the Oregonian's letters page to propose that people protest your lies at your convention. In the public interest, so to speak.
Nader 2004 -- unsafe at any speed.
I am so disappointed.
Shava Nerad
vote traded for Nader in 2000
sorry I did.
Here in Portland, Oregon, we're having a special benefit to go see Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 movie on Friday, and after the movie we're inviting folks to a salon at a saloon (well, brewpub, but who could resist the wordplay) for everyone to debate and rant on the movie and the events depicted.
The money we raise from this event will allow canvassers -- some of which have have time but no money to duplicate or buy campaign materials -- to cover their neighborhoods on behalf of Democratic candidates, including Kerry! It took us two days of calling around to put this together and it's a real help, especially to our youth canvassers.
You can put something together in your area like this. It's easy! Email me for advice if you like, I'd be happy to do what I can!
John Zogby reports that in the last two weeks, with beheadings and the canonization of Ronald Reagan at the top of the news Bush is pulling ahead in key "battleground" states.
I was sad when Project Vote Smart moved from Corvallis, Oregon to Montana -- I always sort of thought I'd like to work there...
They have lots of info on Kerry that you might enjoy, from his ratings by various interest groups (Arts 100%, choice 100%, Humane Society 100%, American Shareholders 0%, US Chamber of Commerce 55%, USPIRG 95%,...) to the name of his yellow canary (Sunshine... As in "good morning, sunshine?").
This is a great site which is underpublicized. Plug in your zip+4 to get detailed information on your local office holders!
Enjoy!
On NewsWire today, the Kerry campaign posted a transcript of Kerry's statement on World Refugee Day, bringing to me the details of a crisis in Sudan of which I had no real awareness.
Watch the news and see if this makes any press at all. Bet it's not considered "newsworthy."
This year we focus on places refugees call home - be it homes they once left or new homes. Our nation has always drawn its strength of character from the knowledge that America - as Abraham Lincoln spoke of it - is the last best hope of earth. Through our history, millions have found their own hopes fulfilled in America. Today it is fitting that we give careful pause to remember the circumstances they have left, while we recognize that they have enriched our nation as they have come to call it their own.
The responsibility attached to Lincoln's words does not end at our shores. Across the world, refugees need our assistance and our support. They look to America's voice and leadership to champion their plight. And perhaps nowhere is the need for leadership greater than in Sudan today.
Sudan's western Darfur region demands the world's immediate attention and action. Rampages against defenseless civilians by government-sponsored militia have caused the deaths of as many as 30,000 people, and more than one million have been made homeless. The US government estimates that at least 300,000 more are likely to die and, in the worse case, up to one million innocent civilians could perish. Now is not the time to debate whether to call this catastrophe a genocide. Now is the time for swift and strong action.
The United States must lead the UN Security Council to immediately impose tough and effective sanctions on the government of Sudan, unless it moves without delay to act on its stated commitment to disarm militias and allows full, unimpeded access for humanitarian assistance. The Security Council should also provide authorization, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, for an international humanitarian intervention. Advance authorization will signal to the Sudanese government that the international community will not acquiesce in continued dying in Darfur and would help accelerate preparations for intervention, should that prove necessary.
Because of the urgency of the crisis we must also be ready to take additional measures to pressure the Sudanese government: time is not on the side of those displaced by the violence. The coming rains will further limit humanitarian access, and disease could kill hundreds of thousands in crowded camps.
This is a riot!
Go to George Says and choose a pose, background, and give George a quote, and you can generate a cartoon -- which if you like you can turn into a $5 fridge magnet.
Here's my modest effort:
Enjoy!
[presented as a summer service at the West Hills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Father's Day, 2004]
When I was younger, a friend of mine taught me to blend the Sufi dance, the Dance of Universal Peace, with the image of the chalice that is the symbol of Unitarian Universalism.
I want every one of you to imagine that you are a lit chalice. Every one of you is a light – that’s what the chalice symbolizes to me, that flame that transforms the world through the actions that flow from the open and clear heart.
I’m going to open up with a song we would sing at LRY camp, if you can follow along with me:
This little liberal light of mine
I’m gonna let it shine (3x)
Let it shine all the time let it shine.
Hide it under a bushel?,”NO!
Nobody’s gonna PHFT it out
This little liberal light of mine…
Now, I know there are probably Democrats, Greens, Independents, maybe even Republicans and Socialists, who-knows, in this congregation. But there’s a strong liberal streak in our congregations that I am speaking to today, even for those of you cultural creatives – like me – who have stances that don’t cubbyhole easily. Bear with me, please.
This is an apt tribute I'll offer on Father's Day, acknowledging my dad, the Reverend Joseph F. Nerad. My father, a UU minister, was deeply involved in the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King. I remember seeing him off, to go march in Selma, like seeing him off to go to war. I don’t think John Reeb was dead yet, but we all knew, even I at 4 years old, how dangerous this work was, if how necessary.
I remember asking my father why, why, why it was that people just didn’t see what was right, that the old ways were wrong, and that they should learn to live together and be good. And my father crouched down to my height, and told me, “You have a gift for knowing what is right, and if you could just speak to every one of these people, one at a time, then they would understand.”
Then he stood up, and sighed, and said, “Meanwhile, I have travelling to do.”
I felt a Truth in what my father said there, although really I don’t think he thought of it as a moment of epiphany or even importance. It’s something that many of us tell our children at tender ages, laying on them an obligation to dash their youth on the rocks of an idealism that we struggle with as adults.
I have struggled with that for forty years now, and I’ve modified my perspectives.
Like some of you, I grew up steeped in this environment of social action that's afforded by the Unitarian Universalist congregations. And like some of you, I have spent a good deal of my life at arm's length, well away from the tangled webs of political circles. To me, there always seemed something clear and virtuous about devotion to a cause. Partisan politics was just ikky.
Civil Rights, Peace, Environmentalism, Civil Liberties, Digital Divide activism, the rights of sexual minorities – these are all causes I’ve been involved in over the years. It is always easy to be crusader for a cause – in your mind, you can always shape what you are fighting for.
Politicians, on the other hand, will always say something that will make you want to curl up in a corner and die of embarrassment.
So most of my forty years of activism I have reserved my energy for issues, not for parties or candidates. I’ve learned a few things – the more you know, the less clean an issue is. Environmentalism comes at the cost of jobs in the short term. Peace, if one is not careful, can come at the cost of turning your back to genocide, or the abuses of dictatorship, or the covert actions of your own government. You must learn the concerns of your opposition to craft good process, good compromise in the public sphere, and what you learn can slow you down – but it has to.
We need to understand all sides. Martin Luther King specifies six principles of nonviolence from his first book, Stride Toward Freedom. Here’s what you need to embrace:
1) Nonviolence is not passive, but requires courage;
2) Nonviolence seeks reconciliation, not defeat of an adversary;
3) Nonviolent action is directed at eliminating evil, not destroying an evil-doer;
4) A willingness to accept suffering for the cause, if necessary, but never to inflict it;
5) A rejection of hatred, animosity or violence of the spirit, as well as refusal to commit physical violence; and
6) Faith that justice will prevail.
From this, The King Center distills six steps for nonviolent social change:
(1.) Information gathering and research to get the facts straight;
(2.) Education of adversaries and the public about the facts of the dispute;
(3.) Personal Commitment to nonviolent attitudes and action;
(4.) Negotiation with adversary in a spirit of goodwill to correct injustice;
(5.) Nonviolent direct action, such as marches, boycotts, mass demonstrations, picketing, sit-ins etc., to help persuade or compel adversary to work toward dispute-resolution;
(6.) Reconciliation of adversaries in a win-win outcome in establishing a sense of community.
This is my beacon in all of my actions in the public sphere. It works pretty well in family arguments, too…
Now you may imagine by now that I grew up in a family that wasn’t averse to bantering issues. I had a conversation with my mother, not so long after 9/11. My mother is in her middle 80’s, and frail, but in 2002 we were still sharing long rants about politics and international affairs. I forget what Ashcroft had done – something to erode democracy further, some act of many.
And my mother burst out, “I think it’s time we brought the F word back into politics.”
Now I was a little shocked. My mother doesn’t use bad language. But she went on:
“I am old enough to remember the rise of fascism in Europe. Everyone thinks of Hitler, but it started first with Mussolini and Franco. And you know, Benito Mussolini was a fat good old boy in the hip pocket of business, and a paragon of banality. And no one reminds me of the man’s character so much as this young Bush.”
Well, I was even more shocked. I mean, “fascism” isn’t a political system, is it? It’s an epithet. It’s that word you throw into a political conversation to stop dialog – in fact I can see a couple people here shut down now, just from my saying it.
But fascism is a system of unholy marriage between corporations and government, popularly supported by a propaganda-controlled citizenry rallied by patriotism rooted in nostalgia for some “lost golden age,” and controlled by fear of the Other.
I am not saying that the people in DC are fascists. I am only saying that the comparison makes me far too uncomfortable. In 2002, it made me think. In 2003, it moved me to action.
Now, I’m fond of third parties, but there is no third party that’s going to turn Bush out this fall. I started out thinking that the Democrats had got to field a candidate that I could support. I love Dennis Kucinich, but I believed then and now – even though I voted for the man in the Oregon primary – that the nation is not ready for Dennis’ message. Politics is about compromise.
But I grew up in Vermont, and in late 2002, I heard that Howard Dean was running. Dean was never governor when I was living in Vermont, but my parents liked him, and there are people who I would trust to raise my son, back home, who believe that the man is a man of great integrity. The first candidate for the presidency with such integrity since Jimmy Carter.
But already the media was painting him with the broad brush of “Rockefeller Republican” – fiscally conservative, socially progressive. You know, I can live with that… It’s a message that isn’t so harsh in the face of deficits, war, pollution, and the loss of rights and liberties.
As a result, I figured I could support him, even though I thought the man would get eaten alive. At least he’d be heard.
Much to my surprise, a couple things happened. First, I found – attracted to Dean – the most beloved, brave, organized, wide awake and enlightened set of liberal activists I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with on any issue or campaign whatsoever. Second, the Dean activist and Dr. Dean managed to change something fundamental in American political activism. We’ve scared the crap out of some folks high up in the Democratic Party. In a good way.
And that’s why I’m here today talking to you.
Dean didn’t make it to the Democratic Convention, but he is making a difference in the respect people give to grassroots organizing, and especially the relationship of new media to the grassroots. He’s woken up the DNC to the power of liberals in an age when 100 $20 contribution can cost less to raise over the net than one $2000 contribution from some fat cat. Less in dollars and less in ethics. Democracy. Who’d a thunk it.
Howard Dean also used the Internet to give his volunteers permission to represent his ideals, and tools to empower us to bring his message out to anyone we could reach, by whatever seemed best locally.
We organizers were given basic ideas and materials and told – go do what you know how to do. We were not given strictures, and sometimes not even given much guidance. But we were given tools. And we developed leadership.
That leadership has now revitalized the Multnomah County Democrats, and we are leaning behind Kerry’s caboose, even though we don’t all love him the way we loved Dean.
But let me tell you about that.
The day I agree with a candidate for public office 100%, it means I’m running for office myself, and just shoot me. As a mom, I won’t tell my son fondly, “Someday you could grow up to be President.” What a curse! To find someone of decent character who’s willing to go through the crap we put candidates through… It’s amazing we get anyone decent at all, ever.
Kerry is, I’m convinced, a decent man. More than that, I’m convinced he’s listening to the grassroots, and he’ll be responsive (certainly more than Bush!) to the will of the people. He has good ideas, even if he doesn’t project well – I’ve seen him in small groups now, a couple times, and he’s really a fine man in person. I think he’s afraid of crowds… And the media does him no favors.
Issues are easy – you can make them what you want, and if the folks running your nonprofit of choice screw up, it’s about them not about the cause. But if a candidate screws up, it’s about the candidate. Why is that? Why don’t we give a candidate slack? Is it a contagious media feeding frenzy that sweeps us up?
Why is it that when we see the right wing yahoos threatening the Sierra Club or public broadcasting, we feel a call to action, but when we see the Democrats moving to the right we throw up our hands? Why don’t we get involved, instead?
All politics is local, people. Properly, in a democracy, the candidate is the delegate of the people, the spokesperson, and we shape his or her message. But we don’t believe that any more. And our lack of belief is self-fulfilling.
Time to take back our democracy.
We know, in social action circles that life in the public sphere is about compromise. We understand, every time we appeal to our allies in government, that they are constrained by compromise built into the system at every level. Yet when a candidate compromises a message so that he or she can get elected and act on our behalf, we distrust it.
One reason is that, the day after the election, we feel powerless. Why is that? Because no one has ever taught us UUs how to work directly on the political system the way we know how to work on nonprofits. Well, I’ve been learning fast, and you can too!
Our UU principles say that we support “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.” This year, I believe that the center of your social action – whether you believe in aiding the homeless, in improving education, in preserving the environment, in peace and positive international relations, in GLBTQI… rights and marriage equity – whatever it is that you believe in, you must work to remove the Bush administration from office.
But Sinkford and the UUA will not say this. Why not? Because they can’t legally. Our denomination and our congregations are restricted under section 501[c][3] of the IRS code to neither speak for nor against any candidate for public office. It’s part of the separation of church and state that is ignored by the Christian Right with apparent impugnity. But we believe as a denomination, as do many of our allies on the religious left (the society of friends, liberal episcopalian and lutherans, many more liberal Jews, and so on) – we believe in that separation of church and state. So you will not hear our professional leadership call for you to work against Bush. Not from Beacon Street, and not from professional clergy.
So what did I learn from the Dean campaign? Do what you can to organize locally.
I learned that I thought it was an issue of personal conscience to avoid politics, but it was just a lazy habit. Worse it’s a habit subtly ingrained in many of us by years of sensational media, and not the result of personal experience.
If it was good enough for Mohandas Gandhi, I just have to believe it’s good enough for me.
I learned that the local Democrats are a bunch of generally disorganized socially minded activists not much different from any fringe nonprofit I’ve been involved with. Most of us, in our UU congregations, do not live in places where the Democratic Party is a bunch of old rich white dudes chomping cigars in a back room, making decisions in closed session – if those places still exist.
I also learned that the Democrats are the folks who place decision makers in office, who I have to appeal to when I need support for whatever social action cause I’m working on. So I can work all my favorite progressive issues at once by making sure the Dems toe the liberal line.
Hard work, but someone has got to do it. The more people of good conscience who get involved, the healthier the process.
Now, some of you probably voted for Nader last election – I vote-traded with a guy in suburban Atlanta myself, so the Greens got one more vote but I (as a registered independent then) could vote for Gore in this swing state. And some of you probably believed at that time, Nader’s message that there is no difference between the two major parties.
But I do not believe that President Gore would have gutted environmental laws, sent us to Iraq, and done the damage to the constitution that this administration did. Corporatism in the Democrats is a symptom of a lack of popular grassroots support. We proved that with the Dean campaign. No PACs, no big corporate donations. Just $20 at a time over the net.
We have a huge store of resources and experience and leadership in our congregations, as do the Friends and many other of our allies who have built up social action savvy over the years. This is the year for us to organize those resources to turn the Bush administration out of office.
It will not come from the pulpit. It must come from us. Working with MoveOn and such is fine, but direct action will come through the local Democratic Party and the Kerry Campaign. I want you to get offline, and get out your walking shoes. Don’t mourn, organize!
This year, it’s vitally important that all our US congregants – here at WHUUF, at First Church downtown, in Eugene, all over Oregon, and all over the US – that we network peer-to-peer within our congregations to organize the religious left, in our own denomination and among our friends and allies in social action circles.
To this end, I’ve started a weblog, Unitarian Universalists for Kerry, that has information on how to revitalize the local county parties, the Kerry campaign, how to organize within a congregation peer to peer, and across the internet, and within your workplace and neighborhoods and schools.
But it can’t be just “anybody but Bush.” Listen, every one of you knows how we keep local politicians held accountable. It’s not just through elections. Yes, it’s through holding them accountable for individual votes and actions.
It’s also through showing them that we are their base. That’s influence.
People of conscience, people of principle, people of good will and good works, need to become the political base of the Democratic Party again. So that we are the guidance that trickles up. So our contributions become more powerful than those of any corporate lobbyist, as they did during the Dean campaign. We are millions, and we know how to walk the walk even if we do talk the talk a bit too much. And we know how to put our money where our mouth is.
Here is our mouth:
We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote
* The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
* Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
* Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
* The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
* The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
So, this year, help me organize the religious left. I’m one unemployed single mom, short on time and energy. I can’t push things to happen. I can only shine one liberal light on the process – together we can light a fire under this democracy, and burn it clean.
But there’s another song I’d like to revive in this current year, if you would stand as you are able:
We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.
We are not alone, we are not alone
We are not alone today.
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.
We're on to victory, We're on to victory,
We're on to victory someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We're on to victory someday.
We'll walk hand in hand, we'll walk hand in hand,
We'll walk hand in hand someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We'll walk hand in hand someday.
We are not afraid, we are not afraid,
We are not afraid today;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We are not afraid today.
The truth shall make us free, the truth shall make us free,
The truth shall make us free someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
The truth shall make us free someday.
We shall live in peace, we shall live in peace,
We shall live in peace someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall live in peace someday.
We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.
Go forth and do good work. Thank you.
Well, maybe this is more a personal review, but there you go... My friend Matt Sweeney, in Maryland, started his new blog with this entry:
The one and only
Land of Mu started with word that the legendary Shava Nerad had entered the blogging sphere.
This site, will now begin with word that she's really gotten ahold of something with her new blog Unitarian Universalists for Kerry. Witty, insightful, a perspective you hadn't considered before, all the classic things that make this woman someone that EVERYONE should listen to.
She has been called The Emma Goldman of the Information Age for a reason.
The incomparable Bill Moyers, in the keynote at the Inequality Matters Forum at NYU:
There's no question about it: The corporate conservatives and their allies in the political and religious right are achieving a vast transformation of American life that only they understand because they are its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries. In creating the greatest economic inequality in the advanced world, they have saddled our nation, our states, and our cities and counties with structural deficits that will last until our children's children are ready for retirement, and they are systematically stripping government of all its functions except rewarding the rich and waging war.
And they are proud of what they have done to our economy and our society. If instead of practicing journalism I was writing for Saturday Night Live, I couldn't have made up the things that this crew have been saying. The president's chief economic adviser says shipping technical and professional jobs overseas is good for the economy. The president's Council of Economic Advisers report that hamburger chefs in fast food restaurants can be considered manufacturing workers. The president's Federal Reserve Chairman says that the tax cuts may force cutbacks in social security - but hey, we should make the tax cuts permanent anyway. The president's Labor Secretary says it doesn't matter if job growth has stalled because "the stock market is the ultimate arbiter."
You just can't make this stuff up. You have to hear it to believe it. This may be the first class war in history where the victims will die laughing.
Whether you are a liberal who should learn why liberals should like christ, or you are a christian who wants to find out how to be liberal like christ, this site is for you:
Liberals Like Christ
My favorite URL double entendre for a while. Subtle and satisfying!
Thanks to Dave Franzen for turning me onto this site!
Iraq is so complicated... But what could bring more glee to the liberals who are sweating under the strain of civility this week facing the political canonization of Ronald Reagan (may he RIP), than this photo of Donald Rumsfeld cordially shaking Saddam's hand, in his role as special envoy to Iraq for Reagan's administration.
This page, from GWU's National Security Archive, has plenty of context for the long-standing relationship between the US and Saddam, culminating in recent unpleasant events in Iraq.
I want to put the whole country on ginkgo to improve their memories...
I read your editorial on Kerry's "Gas Bag" with huge frustration this week.
I'm not a Kerry ideologue, but I do believe he's the best we'll have this year. I feel a great deal of compassion for the man, having heard him in person three times now here in Portland, Oregon. The press simply doesn't cover what he says. They follow their adrenal glands, and cover what appeals to their basest instincts, to their nose for controversy and headline sidebars.
John Kerry wouldn't be obsessing on gas prices if it weren't for the media's insistence to obsess on one theme at a time. As I reported on my blog, Unitarian Universalists for Kerry (http://UUsforKerry.blogspot.com/), on 5/18/2004:
Later in the day, I check the internet for stories filed from the press on the morning meeting, but I am dismayed. From this intimate message of hope, there is only one sound byte that gets picked up. "Kerry will lower gas prices." That was a footnote! It had nearly nothing to do with the well-integrated job and education platform he presented. It was not a showcase for the warmth he showed -- in fact it might have been the geekiest moment in the whole presentation.
This is the filter of the press. This is why I urge you to read his stuff on the website and see him in person if you can.
For once I disagree with Greg Palast, in tone at least. No president lives but has done some evil. It comes with the magnitude of the job. Let's see if we can vent our rage toward those who, living, exploit the myth of the Reagan years for their own benefit, and leave the dead in relative peace.
I agree that the canonization process has been distasteful over the past couple of days, yet I disagree with some of my liberal friends, for example, that Reagan had no regard for the poor.
Although I disagree strongly with the Reagan- and neo-conservative viewpoint that helping the poor through federal programs lets local communities off the hook. In Reagan's bio, his father was a local government welfare official, and when welfare was federalized, young Ron saw an inefficient bureaucracy with no ties to local communities or histories.
Now, some of us lauded the federalization of social programs because they removed local prejudices from the eligibility equations, but there is a baby-with-bathwater factor here, also.
Many of my friends are true old-fashioned conservatives. They saw Reagan as the last gasp of old-style conservative paradigms in DC, holding the breach against FDR-JFK-LBJ-... social experimentation that played theory against reality without a view to unintended consequences.
It's unwise for liberals to turn a blind eye to these factors. In doing so we look like damn ignorant fools, and we don't build any bridges.
For example, almost a third of the households with children in Oregon (including my own) are single parent households today, a proportion unthinkable before no-fault divorce was wedged into law. Do we want to go back to the bad old days of even more women trapped in abusive situations because of horrid divorce laws? But could there have been a third way? Who could say.
It is questions like these that conservatives and liberals don't seem to be able to address on an open and candid rational basis.
Reagan appealed to a majority of conservative voters who -- whether realistically or not -- saw him as a crusader for their values. Regardless of the corruption of his presidency or his staff or his greater administration, I will not smack his reputation upon his death, any more than I would expect my more conservative friends to be wondering if Clinton will be buried in a little blue dress. It's not seemly, civil, or gracious, and we need more of that in the world.
We do not build bridges by attacking the dead. Let's wait a seemly time, and history will sort it all out.
Likewise, I am disturbed at the ploy to canonize Reagan at this point because I see it as a graceless ploy by the neo-cons to glorify the connection (however tenuous) between the best and/or mythical aspects of the Reagan era with the Shrub. This sort of smarmy sentimentality is horrible.
Reagan was an ambitious man. "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
From the vast Internet:
How many members of the Bush Administration are needed to
replace a lightbulb?
The Answer is SEVEN:
1. One to deny that a lightbulb needs to be replaced
2. One to attack and question the patriotism of anyone
who has questions about the lightbulb,
3. One to blame the previous administration for the need
of a new lightbulb,
4. One to arrange the invasion of a country rumored to
have a secret stockpile of lightbulbs,
5. One to get together with Vice President Cheney and
figure out how to pay Halliburton Industries one million
dollars for a lightbulb,
6. One to arrange a photo-op session showing Bush
changing the lightbulb while dressed in a flight suit and
wrapped in an American flag,
and finally,
7. One to explain to Bush the difference
between screwing a lightbulb and screwing the country.
Ordinarily, I simply love Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac which airs on KOPB-FM at 10am on weekdays.
However, today, I was really struck by the list of historic anniversaries, in what is usually a list of "this day in literature" rather than "this day in history."
From today's entry:
It was on this day in 1989 that the Chinese government cracked down on students conducting pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square...
It was on this day in 1940 that British forces began the evacuation from Dunkirk...
It was on this day in 1942 that the Battle of Midway took place over the Pacific Ocean...
It was one this day in 1919 that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote, was passed by the United States Congress...
When Ashcroft and company scare the bejesus out of the American people over Labor Day without raising the chromatography of the threat level, I look for things that the news folks are missing.
I found it in the Guardian, of course, with an article on how extensive plans have become for reinstating the draft shortly after the election.
Of bills S89 and HR163, one admits to conscientious objectors and one does not. Neither admits higher ed deferrments. Both close the NAFTA borders to draft dodgers.
There is pending legislation in the American House of Representatives and Senate in the form of twin bills - S89 and HR163. These measures (currently approved and sitting in the committee for armed services) project legislation for spring 2005, with the draft to become operational as early as June 15.
There already exists a Selective Service System (SSS). All young Americans are obliged to "register for the draft". It has been a mere formality since conscription was abolished three decades ago, after Vietnam, together with the loathed (and much burned) draft card. SSS will be reactivated imminently. A $28m implementation fund has been added to the SSS budget. The Pentagon is discreetly recruiting for 10,350 draft board officers and 11,070 appeals board members nationwide.
Draft-dodging will be harder than in the 1960s. In December 2001, Canada and the US signed a "smart border declaration", which, among other things, will prevent conscientious objectors (and cowards) from finding sanctuary across the northern border. There will be no deferment on higher-education grounds. Mexico does not appeal.
All this has been pushed ahead with an amazing lack of publicity. One can guess why. American newspapers are in a state of meltdown, distracted by war-reporting scandals at USA Today and the New York Times. There is an awareness in the press at large that the "embedding" system was just that - getting into bed with the military and reporting their pillow talk as "news from the frontline". The fourth estate has failed the American public and continues not to do its job.
The American public just wants the war to go away. One thing that would get their attention (but not their votes) would be their children being sent off to die in foreign lands. Best not disturb the electorate until after November, seems to be the thinking. There are, after all, more important things than wars: getting your man into the White House, for example. Kerry has clearly calculated that, as president, he too may have to bring in the draft. So his lips are also sealed.
In the previous post I excerpted some of Kerry's remarks. If you read the whole speech it's well developed, a little grim (appropriately to the topic) but full of resolve in the way that military men can plan for peace (no really! You must understand war to plan for peace, just as you must understand disease to cure it!).
But the NY Times (requires registration) just can't report on the issues to save their life. This speech gets turned into a comparison of media campaigns.
It's so discouraging.
But wait! There's more...
Times reporter Adam Nagourney caught the eye of blogger Swopa, and his search of Kerry headlines with Nagourney's byline produced this little gem of a profile of a green-baiter journalist.
Green baiter? I'll say. Kerry's campaign colors are white and green -- appropriate for a man who consistently aces the League of Conservation Voters ratings, and got LCV's early endorsement in January!
“John Kerry is a man whose unparalleled record on environmental issues has earned him an extraordinary lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters, and he is clearly the strongest environmentalist in the field,” said Deb Callahan, president of LCV. “John Kerry understands that the American people need a president who will never roll over to corporate contributors at the expense of the health and safety of the public."
This demonstrates again the cozy relationship between these groups and Democratic candidates, and why the process needs to be transparent,” said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. “After years of these groups trying to pass themselves off as nonpartisan, third-party organizations, it’s now become clear that they’re essentially working for the Democratic Party, and in this case John Kerry.
Perhaps the Kerry folks are seeing the same thing I am -- that his words aren't making it into the press. So he's now apparently releasing his prepared speeches via the Newswire service.
Here's some highlights:
Last week, I proposed a new national security policy guided by four imperatives: First, we must lead strong alliances for the post 9-11 world. Second, we must modernize the world's most powerful military to meet new threats. Third, in addition to our military might, we must deploy all that is in America's arsenal - - our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas. Fourth, to secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Middle East oil.
[snip]
I think of other great challenges this nation has set for itself. In 1960, President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon. Our imagination and sense of discovery took us there. In 1963, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly brought the world to nuclear disaster President Kennedy called for a nuclear test ban treaty. At the height of the Cold War, he challenged America and the Soviet Union to pursue a strategy "not toward ... annihilation, but toward a strategy of peace." We answered that challenge. And in time, a hotline between Moscow and Washington was established. The nuclear tests stopped. The air cleared and hope emerged on the horizon.
When America sees a great problem or great potential, it is in our collective character to set our sights on that horizon and not stop working until we reach it. In our mission to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, we should never feel helpless. We should feel empowered that the successes in our past will guide us toward a safer, more secure world.
Vulnerable nuclear material anywhere is a threat to everyone, everywhere.
We need to employ a layered strategy to keep the worst weapons from falling into the worst hands. A strategy that invokes our non-military strength early enough and effectively enough so military force doesn't become our only option. America must lead and build an international consensus for early preventive action.
Here's what we must do. The first step is to safeguard all bomb making material worldwide. That means making sure we know where they are, and then locking them up and securing them wherever they are. Our approach should treat all nuclear materials needed for bombs as if they were bombs.
[snip]
The second step is to prevent the creation of new materials that are being produced for nuclear weapons. America must lead an international coalition to halt, and then verifiably ban, all production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for use in nuclear weapons -- permanently capping the world's nuclear weapons stockpiles.
Despite strong international support for such a ban, this Administration is stalling, and endlessly reviewing the need for such a policy.
In addition, we must strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to close the loophole that lets countries develop nuclear weapons capabilities under the guise of a peaceful, civilian nuclear power program.
The third step is to reduce excess stocks of materials and weapons. If America is asking the world to join our country in a shared mission to reduce this nuclear threat, then why would the world listen to us if our own words do not match our deeds?
As President, I will stop this Administration's program to develop a whole new generation of bunker-busting nuclear bombs. This is a weapon we don't need. And it undermines our credibility in persuading other nations. What kind of message does it send when we're asking other countries not to develop nuclear weapons, but developing new ones ourselves?
We must work with the Russians to accelerate the "blending down" of highly enriched uranium and the disposition of Russian plutonium stocks so they can never be used in a nuclear weapon.
We don't need a world with more usable nuclear weapons. We need a world where terrorists can't ever use one. That should be our focus in the post 9/11 world.
Our fourth step is to end the nuclear weapons programs in states like North Korea and Iran.
This Administration has been fixated on Iraq while the nuclear dangers from North Korea have multiplied. We know that North Korea has sold ballistic missiles and technology in the past. And according to recent reports, North Korean uranium ended up in Libyan hands. The North Koreans have made it clear to the world - and to the terrorists - that they are open for business and will sell to the highest bidder.
[snip]
Next, we must work with every country to tighten export controls, stiffen penalties, and beef up law enforcement and intelligence sharing, to make absolutely sure that a disaster like the AQ Khan black market network, which grew out of Pakistan's nuclear program, can never happen again. We must also take steps to reduce tension between India and Pakistan and guard against the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands there.
So let it be clear: finally and fundamentally, preventing nuclear terrorism is our most urgent priority to provide for America's long term security. That is why I will appoint a National Coordinator for Nuclear Terrorism and Counterproliferation who will work with me in the White House to marshal every effort and every ally, to combat an incalculable danger.
We have to do everything we can to stop a nuclear weapon from ever reaching our shore-and that mission begins far away. We have to secure nuclear weapons and materials at the source so that searching the containers here at the Port of Palm Beach isn't our only line of defense-it is our last line of defense.
This is not an easy topic: it can be frightening. At this hour, stockpiles go unguarded, bomb making materials sit in forgotten facilities, and terrorists plot away. They sit in unassuming rooms all across the globe. They have their technology. They have their scientists. All they need is that material. But we can stop them. Remember. No material. No bomb. No nuclear terrorism.
We are living through days of great and unprecedented risks. But Americans have never surrendered to fear. Today, we must not avert our eyes, or pretend it's not there-or think that we can simply wait it out. That is not our history-or our hope.
Last Saturday, I attended the dedication of the World War II memorial. I had the honor to sit next to a brave man, Joe Lesniewski who was one of the original "Band of Brothers" from the 'Easy Company" of the 101st Airborne Division. He's part of the Greatest Generation and jumped into enemy territory during the invasion of Normandy. Like so many other young men that day, he looked fear in the face and conquered it. June 6th-this coming Saturday-marks the anniversary of that day which saved the free world.
Sixty years ago, more than 43,000 young men were ready to storm Omaha Beach. Their landing crafts were heading for an open beach, where they averted a wall of concrete and bullets. They knew there was an overwhelming chance that they might die before their boots hit the sand.
But they jumped into the shallow waters and fought their way ashore. Because at the end of the beach, beyond the cliff was the hope of a safer world. That is what Americans do. We face a challenge-no matter how ominous-because we know that on the other side of hardship resides hope.
As president, I will not wait or waver in the face of the new threats of this new era. I will build and lead strong alliances. I will deploy every tool at our disposal. I know it will not be easy, but the greatest victories for peace and freedom never are. There are no cake-walks in the contest with terrorists and lawless states.
We have to climb this cliff together so that we, too, can reach the other side of hardship and live in a world that no longer fears the unknowable enemy and the looming mushroom cloud on the horizon.
We must lead this effort not just for our own safety, but for the good of the world. As President Truman said, "Our goal is collective security...If we can work in a spirit of understanding and mutual respect, we can fulfill this solemn obligation that rests upon us."
Just as he led America to face the threat of communism, so too, we must now face the twin threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. This is a great challenge for our generation-and the stakes are as high as they were on D-Day and in President Truman's time. For the sake of all the generations to come, we will meet this test and we will succeed.
Links
Read my manifesto/sermon!
The official John Kerry website
UUs for Kerry -- the yahoogroup
Show me the money!
Educate yourself and others!