As many of us have been reveling in the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have a Dream Speech" and the nomination of an African American man to be President of the United States, our country continues to practice some of the most egregious human rights violations we've seen in the last 40-50 years.
I expect the people of Postville, Iowa woke up on Tuesday morning with heavy hearts, knowing exactly what so many in Laurel, MS were feeling the day after an ICE raid in which almost 600 people were arrested and jailed. It seems that, as far as ICE, the Justice Department, and Bushco, Postville was such a great succes that it is likely to be repeated all over the country.
Reuters reports Gustav threatens Jamaica. "Jamaicans deserted the streets and government offices closed as a strengthening Tropical Storm Gustav took aim at the island on Thursday on a path toward the Gulf of Mexico oil fields as a powerful hurricane...
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal put New Orleans residents on alert for possible evacuations from Friday, the third anniversary of Katrina's strike."
If Gustav heads into southeast Louisiana, scientists and engineers agree that large swaths of the region could be at great risk of flooding from even a moderate storm surge, especially neighborhoods near the Industrial Canal and on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish...
Almost $13 billion in work remains to be done before the region is protected from a 100-year storm -- about the size of Hurricane Rita -- and that means much of the hurricane protection system remains at risk...
The system's Achilles heel remains the Industrial Canal area, where $695 million worth of structures are planned... But that work, still being designed, won't start to provide any storm surge protection until this time next year.
Three years to make a positive difference, but the Bush administration comes up empty handed. Now if Gustav makes landfall as a hurricane, people likely will be killed by a storm in New Orleans... again.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are wondering if they should push back their convention one week so John McCain can accept his party's nomination on September 11th. According to Fox Noise, Gustav threatens RNC plans. "Mindful of the pitfalls of hosting cocktail parties while Gulf Coast residents are being evacuated, John McCain's campaign suggested Thursday that Republicans could postpone their upcoming national convention in St. Paul if Tropical Storm Gustav makes landfall over the weekend."
Which Bush administration failure does McCain wish to associate with? 9/11 or Katrina? My guess is 9/11, but then who can say? The Republicans chose to celebrate the nation's crumbling infrastructure by holding their fête in the Twin Cities.
Four at Four continues the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan, Putin feeding Georgia conspiracy theories, and investigations, er a whole lot of nothing, from Congress.
*** I reworked my original diary and added more to it, the first one was unplanned, a work in progress. ****
First of all I want to say this diary is not about denigrating the service of our military or making light of the heroism of our POWs. There are things about McCain's POW experiences that need to be put into perspective, because being a POW like John McCain doesn't automatically make one presidential material or particularly heroic. If this is true of any POW it is true of McCain in spades. Follow me below the fold for some straight talk.
I might not be around much tomorrow, having some plans re celebrating spending a half a century on this beautiful little planet, so I thought I would take today to condense what I have learned during my sentence time here on earth.
Tinfoil doesn't work.
Apples straight off of the tree are very tasty.
The beauty of sunsets and sunrises are impossible to describe, paint, or otherwise capture, so don't even try.
Tomatoes are not, as once was believed, poisonous.
There IS nothing to fear but fear itself.
Assholes are everywhere, and it is a choice to be one or not.
There is....gasp! ...an unconscious but very real conspiracy by the rich and powerful to stay rich and powerful and to help their friends stay rich and powerful.
Sanctimony, hypocrisy and moral relativism are more common than ants.
I would have hoped that the Longest Walk that began in February and ended six months later, would have brought the issues of the truth about the suicides on reservations, the lack of justice on reservations, climate change, alcohol and drug addiction in the American Indian population, health concerns of American Indians, and the worries of the American Indian People in general into the public domain. It doesn't seem like it did, and the same message is being given at the DNC in the midst of all that's happening.
Amazingly, in the past several months I've been called a racist 3 times, more than anytime in my life! The first time was when the Jeremiah Wright thing broke out and I defended the guy, I was called bigoted against whites. Then, just the other I was called first "pro-Black" then "racist against whites" because I favored Barack Obama over that walking museum piece from Arizona. Now, today, the conservative economic blog site, Carpe Diem, is labeling people like me racist for demanding things be made in this country!
To The Media: I'm Sorry That The
Democrats United Behind Barack Obama
I'm Sure You'll Make Up Some Other
Ridiculous Controversy Straight Out Of Your
Little Imaginations I Have Faith In You
Obama Wins Nomination; Biden and Bill Clinton Rally Party By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: August 27, 2008 DENVER - Barack Hussein Obama, a freshman senator who defeated the first family of Democratic Party politics with a call for a fundamentally new course in politics, was nominated by his party today to be the 44th president of the United States.
The unanimous vote made Mr. Obama the first African-American to become a major party nominee for president. It brought to an end an often-bitter, two-year political struggle for the nomination with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, standing on a packed convention floor electric with anticipation, moved to halt the roll call in progress so that the convention could nominate Mr. Obama by acclamation. That it did with a succession of loud roars, followed by a swirl of dancing, embracing, high-fiving and chants of "Yes, we can."
Black Delegates Also Bask in Obama's Big Moment ? By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 28, 2008; Page A23 DENVER, Aug. 27 -- Lena Taylor, a Wisconsin state senator from Milwaukee, is "overwhelmed" by the history that will be made Thursday night, when Sen. Barack Obama will become the first African American to accept a major-party presidential nomination. Add in that his acceptance will come on the 45th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, that it has been 40 years since Robert F. Kennedy predicted the country might elect a black president in four decades, and that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy made a dramatic appearance here this week, and the symbolism boggles her mind
USA
Businesses Cite a Catch-22 After Miss. Immigration Raid By Spencer S. Hsu, Alejandro Lazo and Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 28, 2008; Page A01 The arrests this week of nearly 600 immigrant workers at a manufacturing plant in Laurel, Miss., are fueling a national debate over a federal system to check new hires' work documents, a program whose expansion the Bush administration has made a cornerstone of its fight against illegal immigration.
In what they called the largest immigration sweep at a single site in U.S. history, federal agents raided a Howard Industries electrical transformer plant Monday despite the fact that the company last year joined the work eligibility system, called E-Verify.
Last week I publicized the extraordinary appeal campaign for Guantanamo detainee Mohammad Jawad initiated by his military attorneys. Jawad, who was arrested as a teenager in Afghanistan in December 2002, is the first child soldier to be tried as a "war criminal" in modern times. In U.S. custody, he has suffered beatings, threats, physical isolation, sleep deprivation, been subjected to 24-hour bright lights, and more. His attorneys have called for letters to be written to the Convening Authority at Guanatanamo, asking them to withdraw and dismiss the charges against Jawad.
Now, his attorneys have initiated an online petition campaign in his behalf. You can follow this link to go straight to the petition. Please sign it and pass the info on to whomever you can.
The delegate count got to New York where Senator Hillary Clinton asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi to suspend the rules and nominate Barack Obama outright. It's official. Howard Dean said expect the unexpected with Hillary Clinton. That's an understatement.
Pelosi just announces Obama accepted the nomination.
The Pepsi Arena is going wild. The Big Tent is going wild.
It's done. It's all over.
... now back to some Fat Tire Ales.
Correction: Here's what Chris Grotke, friend and co-founder of iBrattleboro.com. IMO his words were accurate with what happened.
They were going through the usual roll call vote with states saying a few words about why they were great and who they would cast ballots for. Clinton was around 300 or so and Obama was at about 1500 - still a ways to go to the 2200 or so needed for the nomination Illinois had passed, presumably so that they could be the ones to put him over the top later.
They weren't on New York. They were on New Mexico, and NM was about to cast their votes when they suddenly yielded to Illinois, who had passed earlier. Then Illinois yielded to New York.
The delegates got excited when they saw Shumer and Clinton making their way to the New York delegation.
At that point, New York got into the action and said a few words before giving the floor to Clinton. She then said that for the sake of unity, and for victory, she was making a motion to suspend the roll call vote and accept Obama by acclamation.
Pelosi guided them through the voice vote and that was that.
I just talked to Jane Hamsher of FDL who told me an ABC News producer was arrested for taking pictures of fat cat donors coming out of a fund raiser. Here's the diary she wrote at Firedoglake. But Brian Ross of ABC News has the story. Check it out.
"Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown's Palace Hotel.
Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.
A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel.
Eslocker was put in handcuffs and loaded in the back of a police van which headed for a nearby police station.
... Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC World News with Charles Gibson."
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
Here's the link to the story. They're not just going after activists.... now they're going after...
THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA?
Sweet Jesus! What have we come to? Spread the word.... and more to come.
I've recently had some experiences in my professional life that validate the "bottom up" approach to change. I thought I'd share them with all of you to see if there are any threads of learning in them that can help us understand the ways we can work together to grow a movement.
Back in 2000, the non-profit I work for was asked to be part of a coalition with St. Paul Public Schools to write a federal Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant proposal. Our coalition was funded for three years. The role of our organization was to have staff on-site in three middle schools to work with students who are chronically suspended for fighting and/or bad behavior. We all know that sending these kids home for a few days relieves the school of safety concerns, but does little or nothing to address the behavior. In fact, for alot of students, getting a few days off from school is a reward. Our staff were there to work one-on-one with these students when they came back to school to provide structure and accountability - but also support and guidance.
The problem with this kind of coalition is that it dies once the three years of funding are up. That's exactly what happened here. But the schools in which we participated were especially supportive of the service we had provided over those years and desperately wanted us to continue. After long and hard discussion (its difficult to continue work when you don't know where the funding will come from), we scaled back to two schools and "hit the streets" to fund raise for these efforts.
Three years to make a positive difference, but the Bush administration comes up empty handed. Now if Gustav makes landfall as a hurricane, people likely will be killed by a storm in New Orleans... again.
