October 29, 2010 archive

Three Green candidates that could seriously shake the boat in their states

Just a note before I begin.  These are just the candidates that I know of from my work in the Green Party and what I can glean online.  There are plenty of other strong Green candidates for state offices all over the country.  Not to mention, there are tons of strong local Green candidates.  You can find Green candidates near you at NewMenu.org.

With these three candidates representing just one part of a group of strong state legislative candidates the Green Party has running across the country this year, the party has a chance to make history.  Since its founding, the party has had four state legislators in office, with one of them being the result of a party switch.  There’s now a good chance that they could elect that many state legislators in a single election.

1.  Ben Manski. Manski is an environmental and democracy advocate running one of the strongest Green campaigns in the nation.  He’s widely regarded as a fierce competitor against the Democrat in the race, while Constitution and Republican candidates are also running.  He is running for the Wisconsin Assembly in the 77th District, which is in Madison.  Manski has racked up an impressive list of endorsements, ranging from local firefighters’ and teachers’ unions to over a dozen current elected officials to statewide figures in the Wisconsin Democratic Party.  With a platform that includes support for ending the war on drugs, the creation of a state bank, and only sending the National Guard into combat when a war is authorized by Congress, Manski is impressive not only because of the likelihood of his election, but because of his bold politics.

2.  Hugh Giordano. Before the election, I’ll be putting up another post about Giordano, because I’ve been volunteering for his campaign for several months, so I’ll keep it short for now.  Hugh is one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met, and when he’s out knocking on doors he’s a union organizer for the United Food and Commercial Workers.  He has garnered endorsements from several local unions who have been helping with the campaign, as well as from a former Democratic candidate in the race and former US Senator Mike Gravel.  He has billboards up, he’s got signs throughout the districts, and he’s got tons of support, especially in the Roxborough neighborhood, where he’s lived for most of his life.  (If you donate to Hugh, which I highly encourage!, please use the mailing address and not paypal, as the campaign has been having troubles with paypal.  Thanks!)

3.  Jeremy Karpen.  Karpen is going against the heart of the Chicago machine, a Democratic incumbent whose father is also in government.  At one point he actually outraised the Democrat, although that ended once the machine’s corporate interests caught wind of it.  Just like Giordano and Manski, he’s been raising an impressive amount of money for a Green and he’s garnered some impressive endorsements, including the Chicago Progressive Democrats of America, a local teachers’ union, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Chicago Tribune.  When I interviewed Phil Huckelberry, a co-chair of the Green Party of Illinois, he insightfully pointed out that having even a single Green in the notorious Illinois legislature would give the body a clear conscience, and it would have the potential to create a movement in the state for clean government.

To me, that is what’s most significant about these campaigns.  They reject the corruption and compromises on principle (or lack of principle from the start) that are inherent in the Democratic Party.  Hugh Giordano’s opponent likes to say that she would remain independent even while being a Democrat in the legislature, but that’s ridiculous.  Without the support of the Democrats, she would be nowhere.  Yet Giordano, and all other Greens, can prove that better, more honest politics is possible by winning without the support of any machine.

when the veils grow thin….

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(all pictures are of carved pumpkins & may be clicked on to see larger)

(a soundtrack while you read…)

Sunday is Hallowe’en, a night for children to dress up & go Trick-or-Treating.

But this holiday has its origins waaaay back, back before the written word, in pagan times.

The Republican War on Reality

Everett Dirksen is one of my heroes. The Senate Republican leader from 1959 to 1969, he pushed strongly for Vietnam escalation and took conservative stands that I’d have strongly disagreed with on economic issues. But he joined Lyndon Johnson in going to the mat to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights bills, and for that I admire him immensely.

Wild Wild Left Radio #85 Another Day in Insanity

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WWL Radio: Free Speech in Practice.

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Hear the Unreported & Under Reported Headline stories that are shunned by the mainstream, from Domestic Policy to International Politics by the WWL coalition of subversion: undermining the PTB by speaking Truth to Power!!!!

This weeks Topics:

Well, hell… by the Comedy Channel’s standards I am thoroughly insane. I think its time to open the windows and scream, “I’m mad as hell, and i’m NOT going to take it anymore.” I mean really? Lumping Anti-War Protesters in with TEABAGGERS?  Thats not Comedy, it is trying to subvert activism and turn it into slackerism.

Restore Sanity? My version of sanity includes raging against the Headlines this Week. No sane people would take this shit quietly.

BP & HALLIBURTON KNEW THE CEMENT WAS BAD PRIOR TO THE OIL SPILL IN THE GULF.

THE US IS TRYING A CANADIAN BOY THEY KEPT AT GITMO FOR 1/3 OF HIS LIFE, WHILE FUNDING OTHER CHILD SOLDIERS IN YEMEN.

A SMALL FEMALE PEACE PROTESTER GETS HELD DOWN AND STOMPED BY TWO HUGE MALE TEA BAGGERS AND THEY ARE DECIDING (!!?wtf?!!) WHETHER OR NOT TO PRESS CHARGES.

ARIZONA’S RACIST IMMIGRATION LAW WAS THE BRAINCHILD OF PRIVATE PROFITEERING PRISON COMPANIES.



WIKILEAKS IS BEING TARGETED AS AN ENEMY FOR BEING A WHISTLEBLOWER, AND NO ONE IS REPORTING/CONDEMNING THE ACTUAL ATROCITIES DONE IN OUR NAMES.(& we remain skeptical whether this is an “approved” leak or not)

Call me insane. I think louder yelling is EXACTLY what is called for here.

Please join us for the onlyout there where the buses don’t run” LEFT perspective with interviews, op/eds and straight talk without the hand-wringing PC that has crippled our movement!

Controversy? We face it. Cutting Edge? We step over it. Revolutions start with information, and The Wild Wild Left Radio brings you the best in information and op/eds from a position that others on the Left fear to tread…. all with a grain shaker of irreverent humor.

Things that go “Bump” in Japan: Happy Halloween

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Things that go “Bump” in Japan

 

 So, this reprises (with updates) my last year’s “Halloween in Japan” post on my just-for-fun site/blog LetsJapan.Wordpress.com.  A personal story, Very Creepy art, some history and EVEN some bonus Ultraman (!).  And access to my This-Week-Only Halloween Special Photo Gallery.  Yes, more fun than a barrel of O’Donnells!

 Excerpt:

 

 “But ghosts and goblins and the creepy stories surrounding them have their own long tradition in Japan (as is the case in every culture).  Celebrated Edo Period wood block artist Hokusai (1760-1849) created a series of Kabuki-inspired “ghost story” prints around 1830, “Hyaku Monogatari”.  Above you see the print, “The Ghost of Koheiji”, based on an 1803 story-turned-kabuki-play by Santo Kyoden (poet, writer and woodblock artist).  Koheiji was betrayed and murdered by his wife.  So, naturally, he comes back from the dead to torment her and her lover by slipping under the mosquito netting around their bedding and joining and doling out horrific justice on them.”

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 Please feel invited to visit, comment, share and if you feel your skin crawling right out the door, remember, that’s either the thought of Koheiji’s skeletal remains, in ghostly form, lurking behind the mosquito netting, or you thought of the even more terrifying image:  Sharon Angle being sworn in as a U.S. Senator!  Nooooooooo!

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Heckuva Job, Mr. Obama…

This past Wednesday “Barack Obama was a guest on The Daily Show, thereby becoming the first sitting president to appear as Jon Stewart’s guest. (In July, Obama became the first sitting president ever to appear on The View.) In the half-hour-long interview, Stewart quizzed his grizzled guest about health-care reform, the financial crisis, and the midterm elections.”

“Stewart’s most combative query concerned National Economic Council director Larry Summers-in particular, Obama’s hiring thereof. ‘We can’t expect different results with the same people,’ Stewart said, referring to Summers’s previous stint as treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. He continued, ‘Larry Summers … that seems like the exact same person.’ Obama, inadvertently quoting his imminently quotable predecessor, replied, ‘Larry Summers did a heckuva job.’ Stewart, somewhat shocked, advised him, ‘You don’t wanna use that phrase…'”

This morning at GRITtv Laura Flanders talked with journalist and Truthdig Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer, who reminds that “Summers was the chief architect of Clinton-era policies that created the economic crisis in the first place, and that Obama’s appointment of him to get us out of it was never going to result in anything but more money being thrown at Wall Street.”



An Obit For Our Hopes – GRITtv, October 29, 2010

It’s no wonder that there is now so much irrepressible enthusiasm among the liberals and independents and progressives who tipped the balance in the democrats favor in 2006 and in 2008 to get out and vote for democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.

Open Teacher

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A Letter from Tenacatita.

(Crossposted from The Wild Wild Left Back ground story here then this week here.)

It is good to know these people have names, have stories. Dobie. Richard. Mary Ann. John. Oscar. Emma. Isela. Barb.

I feel like they are becoming family to me. They have offered to open up their homes to me for a visit there, when they get their beach back. Hammocks and palapas, they say, no cooking or cleaning for me! HA! They must not know me too well. Stopping me from cooking and cleaning? You would have better luck stopping the tides.

I want to share a note from Dobie. I will be speaking to her soon, hopefully next Friday on WWL, as soon as their internet becomes high-speed.

At about 10 PM last night Isela (who was here on Sunday), a lawyer for

Diputado David Hernandez called to ask me if I could go to the gate

this morning because Villalobos and the governor were saying that

there was free access to the beach.

I printed out the article in the Informador with the following quote

by Villalobos,

“El acceso está dado, la gente puede entrar a la playa, pero pueden

entrar tres, cuatro o cinco turistas; si llegan 300 personas con

palos, piedras y se quieren meter, pues eso es una invasión, es una

agresión y no lo vamos a permitir”.

Las únicas condiciones para ingresar al litoral, explicó, son no

acudir bajo los efectos del alcohol, en posesión de armas o a bordo de

un vehículo, ya que en el interior del predio en cuestión no hay

estacionamientos.”

Translated says “The access is given, people can enter the beach but

3, 4 or 5 tourists can enter, if 300 people show up with shovels,

rocks and that want to go in, well, this is an invasion, it’s an

agression and we won’t allow it.

Docudharma Times Friday October 29




Friday’s Headlines:

Jon Stewart’s ‘Daily Show’ has exploded beyond its humble late-night comedy roots

USA

Yes we can, Obama said. But can he?

Tests showed unstable cement in gulf oil well before explosion

Europe

Angela Merkel struggles to win support for EU bailout rules at Brussels summit

Russia’s hungry bears dig up graves

Middle East

Iran will be back in the frame

Hezbollah urges Hariri case boycott

Asia

Hopes fade for Indonesian tsunami survivors

Afghan warlord’s private army trained in Australia

Africa

Hero of ‘Hotel Rwanda’ is declared enemy of the state

Somalia’s Shebab executes two girls for ‘spying’

Bill Clinton Urged Florida Democrat to Quit Senate Bid



By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and JEFF ZELENY

Published: October 28, 2010


WASHINGTON – Former President Bill Clinton last week almost succeeded in persuading Kendrick B. Meek, the Democratic nominee for the Senate in Florida, to drop out of the three-way race – but Mr. Meek changed his mind at the last minute, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton said Thursday evening.  

Matt McKenna, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman, said the former president had concluded that Mr. Meek’s candidacy was struggling and was urging him to drop out and endorse Charlie Crist, the state’s Republican governor, who is running for the Senate as an independent.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.



In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

–Bertrand Russell



Halloween

We are faced with a choice

  Rep. Damon Silvers, a member of the independent Congressional Oversight Panel, asked what is probably the most important question facing America today.

 We can either have a rational resolution to the foreclosure crisis or we can preserve the capital structure of the banks. We can’t do both.

 Which should we do?

 The question doesn’t sound all that ominous, but it is. In essence we must chose between protecting the TooBigToFail Wall Street banks, or the rule of law.

 That may sound overly dramatic, and I wouldn’t blame you if that was your initial reaction, but surprisingly the choice really is that simple.

Late Night Karaoke

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